Songfacts®:

• "Headlock" is an intricate track that feels like an intimate chat with a friend who is stuck in a rut of their own making. Imogen Heap believes this person has the potential to alter their life for the better, yet they refuse. She weaves the metaphor of a headlock to capture that sense of being trapped - whether in a relationship, an emotional quagmire, or just the stubborn refusal to change.
• The song blends Heap's signature lush, layered vocals with an eclectic array of instruments, including the mbira (a thumb piano from Africa), a string bass, and a vibraphone. These sounds, married with electronic flourishes, give "Headlock" an immersive texture.
• Released as the third single from Heap's Speak for Yourself album, it peaked modestly at #74 on the UK Singles Chart and also reached #19 on Billboard's Hot Rock and Alternative Songs.
• Several prominent hip-hop artists have sampled "Headlock" in their tracks, including:
  
  Soulja Boy in "The World Needs Change" (2010)
  A$AP Rocky in "Angels" (2013)
  Cochise in "Professor Professor (2022)
• In 2024, "Headlock" was back in vogue largely thanks to Mouthwashing, a psychological horror video game that was released in the fall. TikTok users edited clips of the game together using the song as a soundtrack. As a result, streams of "Headlock" grew exponentially, catapulting the song onto the UK and US Singles Charts.
• The music video was filmed on July 11, 2006, and premiered on Manchester's Channel M in early September before being distributed to other music television channels. It employs striking visual metaphors to depict the battle against limitations and self-doubt, blending surreal and abstract imagery to harmonize with the song's ethereal electronic soundscape.
• Imogen Heap landed her first Hot 100 entry as a recording artist with "Headlock" when it entered the chart dated January 25, 2025. She also secured a spot on the chart as a co-writer and co-producer for Taylor Swift's "Clean" from the 1989 (Taylor's Version) re-recording, which reached #30 in November 2023.
• Imogen Heap had to remortgage her London flat to fund Speak For Yourself after her album Details with producer Guy Sigsworth, released under the name Frou Frou, tanked. "I spent four years making an album in Frou Frou on Island Records, but it never recouped so I never saw a penny," she told The Guardian. "Making another album with that label would've felt like taking your best dress back to the dry cleaners after they burned it.
  
  "After I got out of that deal, no bank would lend me any money. Then I realized my two-bedroom flat in Waterloo, which I'd bought for £120,000, had gone up by £100,000 in a year, so I remortgaged it to make the album and never looked back."