The Clash Rock the Casbah

Illustration of a boom box with a white banner with black text coming out of it on top of a red star with a grey circle behind it with a black then orange then black outer ring.

In 1982 the English rock band The Clash released their biggest hit, Rock the Casbah. The song, which was inspired by Iran's ban on Western music after the 1979 Revolution, was about a king who bans rock music only for his orders to be defied by pilots who play the music above the city. The famous first lines of the song are featured on the button, “The king told the boogie-men / You have to let that raga drop”. Rock the Casbah was a hit song in the United States, Europe, and Australia, and has been covered by countless other artists and continues to be regarded as a classic rock song.