The McRib McMassacree

 The McRib McMassacree (Sung to the tune of Alice’s Restaurant Massacree)

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

This song is called The McRib McMassacree

It's about the McRib, and the McMassacree

The McRib is not the name of the McMassacree,

That's just the name of the song.

That's why I call the song "The McRib Massacree"

Now it all started ___ ago, ___ ago, on Election Day,

When I went up to McDonalds, hoping to get a McRib.

But as most of you know, McDonalds doesn’t usually sell McRibs.

They sell all sorts of other things like Big Macs and Quarter Pounders with Cheese

Or a Royale with Cheese as they call it in France.  Is there anybody here from France?

No?  OK, then we don’t have to call it that.

I only know that they call it that, because I have seen the movie Pulp Fiction way too many times.

So McDonalds has Big Macs and Quarter Pounders with Cheese and Chicken Nuggets

And Egg McMuffins and McGriddles

and they have both a Double Cheeseburger and a McDouble

Which is basically the same sandwich, except the Double Cheeseburger

Has two slices of cheese and the McDouble only has one slice of cheese.

That extra slice will usually cost you an extra 20 cents.  

I have no idea how much it costs McDonalds.

How much does a slice of cheese cost anybody?  Probably not twenty cents.

I will normally splurge for the extra 20 cents, because a Double Cheeseburger

Has the same amount of meat as a Quarter Pounder with Cheese

But costs less than half as much.  Have you figured out yet that I spend

Way too much time eating at McDonalds that I know this much?

Anyway, in addition to the many different kinds of burgers

That they sell at McDonalds, there is another sandwich

That they sell on very rare occasions.  It is called the McRib.

Whether you eat as much at McDonalds as I do or not

I am sure that you have heard of the McRib.

The McRib is one of those myths and urban legends that are true

Like Area 51 and the Loch Ness Monster.

It has been such a long time, nearly 8 years to be exact

That McDonalds sold the McRib nationwide

That there are many children in the world today

Who have only heard about the McRib from their parents

But have never seen one firsthand.

Many of these children, like the cynical trogolodytes

That a steady diet of Minecraft, Roblox, and YouTube videos

Have raised them to be, do not believe that the McRib is real.

In fact, they are far more likely to believe

In Area 51 and the Loch Ness Monster than the McRib

But you and I, we all know that it is real.

We know that the McRib is real, because a long long time ago

In this very galaxy, we were able to drive to our local McDonalds

On one of those very rare occasions and buy a McRib

The last time that McDonalds sold the McRib, Barack Obama was President

And while I cannot say that our country was necessarily sane back then.

After all, the Tea Party movement was in high gear

After the Republican Party took back the House and the Senate

And did everything that they could to try and make Barack Obama a one-term President

And Barack Obama did everything that he could to try and make Barack Obama a one-term President

But this song is not about politics.  It is about the McRib.

As anyone who knows anything about the McRib knows

The McRib is a rectangular patty made from what I can

Only guess is pork, because it sure as hell does not taste

Like any beef burger that I have ever eaten.

But then again, most of McDonalds hamburgers do not taste

Like any beef burger that I have ever eaten.

Have you ever heard of pink slime?  Maybe we shouldn’t go there.

Anyway, irregardless… you know that’s a real word now.

I know that it is a real word, because Jamie Lee Curtis tweeted

About how after everything that our world has experienced in 2020

With the coronavirus and mask-wearing

And the shutdowns and the global depression

We now have something new to be upset about.

The good people at Merriam-Webster have added

The word irregardless to their dictionary.  What does it mean?

It means the same thing as regardless, but

They wanted everybody to know that irregardless is now a word too, and

Jamie Lee Curtis wanted everybody to know that

She was not happy about this.  I do not know why, but she did.

The thing is that I never knew that Jamie Lee Curtis

Was someone who cared so much about the words in the dictionary.

Y’all know who Jamie Lee Curtis is, right?

She is the actress who was in the Halloween movies

And showed us her tits in Trading Places.

Who knew that she cared so much about the words in the dictionary.  But she does.

But this song is not about Jamie Lee Curtis.  Or Jamie Lee Curtis’s tits.

Or whether or not irregardless should be in the dictionary.

It is about the McRib and irregardless… of what meat-like substance

The McRib is made from, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt the tastiest thing

that McDonalds has every created and as anybody who has ever eaten a McRib knows

In addition to being rectangular-shaped, it has these raised sections in it

So that it looks like there are bones in it like a rack of ribs, which is weird

Because nobody would eat a rack of ribs sandwich

Unless they wanted to break all of their teeth

Or the rib bones and choke on the shards and die.

Yet whomever invented the McRib thought that

The McRib should look as much like a rack of ribs as possible

And despite the fact that it does not look anything like a rack of ribs

It still tastes better than anything else that McDonalds has ever created

Which is why WE and I mean WE love it so much.

I stress the word WE because WE is not a word

That you hear very much in these crazy times.

You hear a lot about US.  And you hear a lot about THEM.

But you almost never hear anything about WE.

People have forgotten about WE.

Even all of those people who love to talk about our founding fathers.

And what their original intent was when they wrote the Constitution.

Seem to forget that before they started writing all of those Articles

And then decided to add a Bill of Rights to them for good measure.

Started off with something that they called The Preamble.

And now I am going to steal from Lynn Ahrens

And the other good people at Schoolhouse Rock who own the rights to this song

And will not get a penny from me for stealing this part of their song from them.

Because they ripped it off directly from the Constitution

Of the United States of America and just put it to music.

And it goes a little something like this…

We the people,

In order to form a more perfect union,

Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,

Provide for the common defense,

Promote the general welfare and

Secure the blessings of liberty

To ourselves and our posterity

Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Beautiful isn’t it?  And the most important part of it is the first three words

We the people.  We the people.  WE THE PEOPLE.

And even though we all know that those white male slaveowners

Were not necessarily talking about ALL of the people just yet.

It would be nice to believe that at least some of them hoped

That a day would come sometime down the road of what they called the future.

And what we still call the future.

We the people could mean ALL of the people and ALL of the people

Could think about themselves as WE THE PEOPLE

Instead of US THE PEOPLE and THEM THE PEOPLE

And I was thinking about this as I walked into my local McDonalds.

Because I had just come from dropping off my ballot at my local drop box

And was feeling depressed, which is how I usually feel when I walk into a McDonalds

Because who ever eats McDonalds

When they are feeling good and wanting to feel even better?

That is not what McDonalds food is for.

When I am feeling good and want to feel even better.

I am not going to eat a Double Cheeseburger

Or a McDouble or whatever you want to call

That thing with two pieces of meat and one or two slices of cheese.

Because there is a difference; remember that.

When I am feeling good and want to feel even better

I am going to eat a marijuana brownie.

When the day comes that marijuana is legal in all 50 states

And McDonalds decides that they are going to put marijuana

In their apple pies, I might go to McDonalds

When I am feeling good and want to feel even better

But that day has not come yet, and until it does

McDonalds is going to be the place where I go

When I am feeling depressed and want to feel somewhat better.

And I was feeling depressed on Election Day

After dropping off my ballot in my local ballot drop box

I wasn’t feeling depressed for the obvious reasons

Sure I was concerned about who is going to win and who is going to lose

I was also concerned about how angry so many people are going to be

No matter who wins and who loses.

I was depressed, because dropping off my ballot in my local ballot drop box

Did not give me the same feeling of joy that voting normally gives me.

In addition to the obvious things that I like about voting

Like citizenship and having my voice heard even when it isn’t

The thing that have I always liked about voting was going to my local polling place

Standing on line with my fellow Americans

Saying absolutely nothing to nobody, while

Trying to guess who is voting for whom just based on how someone looks.

Which is terrible, I know, but WE all do it.  There’s that word WE again.

If people actually thought for a moment

They would realize that there are more things that WE have in common

Than there are things that make us different.

And some of those things are very good.

And some of them are kinda terrible, but even when WE are kinda terrible

At least we can be terrible together.

And that is what I miss most about voting the way that we used to vote.

All of these very good and kinda terrible people standing in a line

Saying nothing to each other, but being very good and kinda terrible together.

The other thing that I always liked about voting the old way

Was getting that little sticker that says “I Voted”.

For me, getting that little sticker was like being a non-Star-Bellied Sneetch

From that Dr. Seuss story, going into the voting booth,

Which is kinda like the machine in that story that put stars on the bellies

Of the non-Star-Bellied Sneetches, and coming out with a star on my belly.

Now that I had that star on my belly, I could be superior to all of the

Non-Star-Bellied Sneetches out there who for whatever reason

Did not want to have a star on their belly.  But this year is very different.

Now, nearly everybody is voting, and I know that is a good thing.

But I liked being a Star-Bellied Sneetch in a world

Where there were still many non-Star-Bellied Sneetches.

But even more than that, I liked getting that star on my belly that said “I Voted”.

But the ballot drop box did not have any stars or stickers or anything of the sort.

It was just an old mailbox that was used as a ballot drop box.

It could not give me anything.  It could just take my vote.  And it did.

So depressed, I went to my local McDonalds

To get a McDouble or a Double Cheeseburger

Hell, I was so depressed, I thought that I might get a Triple Cheeseburger.

I wonder if that means three pieces of cheese as well as three pieces of meat.

After all, if they only used two pieces of cheese between the 

Three pieces of meat, they could call it a McTriple

And then charge 20 cents more for a Triple Cheeseburger.

And when I got there, the line for the Drive Thru was really long.

Part of me wanted to keep driving and stop at the White Castle

A little further down the road.  I actually like White Castle

More than McDonalds, but anybody who has ever eaten White Castle

Knows that there is a reason why their burgers are called sliders.

Plus, I had already eaten at White Castle earlier that morning for breakfast.

But this is not a song about White Castle.  It is a song about the McRib.

One day, I might write a song about the White Castle

Slider, egg, and cheese sandwich.  But this is not that day.

So I drove into the parking lot and did something I almost never do.

Unless I need to use the bathroom, which is park and walk inside.

Because one of the things that eating McDonalds food does

To the body is that it makes it not want to do things like

Get up out of your car and walk into a McDonalds and stand on a line

But even though I was not in a rush to get anywhere or do anything

And could have just as easily sat in my car and listened to the radio.

For some strange and unknown reason, I pulled into a parking spot,

Got out of my car, and walked inside.

The line inside was just as big as the line outside and part of me

Wanted to go back out to my car and get on the drive thru line.

But the other part of me, the part of me that missed

Standing on line at my polling place, decided to stay.

So as I stood on that line, waiting to place my order,

And being the kinda terrible person that I am,

I began to look at all of the other people on the line

And started to think about who they voted for based on how they looked.

The Black guys definitely voted for Biden.  So did the Hispanic guys.

The White guys and White women were a little harder to predict.

The really well-dressed ones definitely voted for Trump, because he cut their taxes.

The moderately well-dressed ones definitely voted for Biden

Because their property taxes went up more than their income taxes went down

And they seemed smart enough to understand who was to blame for that.

Meanwhile, the Karen who was demanding to speak to the manager

Because her Double Cheeseburger only had one slice of cheese

Definitely voted for Trump along with all of the poorly-dressed White guys

Who thought that Biden was going to raise their taxes,

The Black guys were going to kill them, and

The Hispanic guys were going to take their minimum wage jobs

And as I continued to size up all of the people on line

And make all kinds of terrible assumptions about them

One of those Black guys who was looking at his phone said to one of his friends,

“Did you hear that McDonalds is bringing the McRib back?”

I did a double take.  Did he just say what I think that he said?

As I was thinking that, one of the Hispanic guys said to one of his friends,

“Did you hear what that guy said?  They’re bringing the McRib back!”

At least that is what I think that he said.  Most of the words were in Spanish except “McRib”.

Next thing that you know, the really-well-dressed White guys

Were talking about the McRib with the moderately well-dressed White guys

And then the moderately well-dressed White guys

Were talking about the McRib with the poorly-dressed White guys

And then, miraculously, the poorly-dressed White guys

Stopped thinking that the Black guys were going to kill them,

And the Hispanic guys were going to take their minimum wage jobs,

And started talking about the McRib with them.

And the Karen stopped screaming at the manager

About her Double Cheeseburger or her McDouble

And asked her if it was true that the McRib was coming back

Which it was, and as everybody was talking

With everybody else about the McRib

A tune started to ring in my head

And words started to come out of my mouth

And even though until that moment

I was the only person there who had not

Said a word to anybody else, I started to sing

Quietly with that familiar Arlo Guthrie tune,

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

At that moment, the entire room went silent.

And everybody looked at me strangely.

They must have thought that I was a faggot.

But I didn’t care, so I sung the chorus again, a little bit more loudly.

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

They were still silent.  And they were still staring.

I don’t think that they thought that I was a faggot anymore.

I think that they thought that I was colonel batguano crazy.

But I didn’t care, so I decided to sing the chorus again, even more loudly.

But before I could, one of the Black guys started to sing, with some Barry White bass in his voice

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

And then one of the Hispanic guys started to sing, with some Ricky Martin in his voice

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

And the really well-dressed White guys

And the moderately well-dressed White guys

And the poorly dressed White guys

Started to do a Beastie Boys version of the chorus

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

And finally, the Karen and the manager and her staff

Sung the chorus like they were in an AME Church Choir

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

For one brief moment in time, all of these very different people

Divided in every imaginable definition of the word

Found something that could bring them all together

In peace and harmony and song and most importantly, unity.

And for that one brief moment in time, they weren’t

Black guys and Hispanic guys and White guys

And rich guys and middle class guys and poor guys and Karen

They were just people, united by the one thing that they had in common

Their love of the McRib.  And singing.  And the McRib.

And if the McRib can bring together these very different people in this one McDonalds

The McRib can bring together people in neighboring towns

And neighboring counties

And neighboring states

And even neighboring countries

It could become a movement.  And that is exactly what this is.

It is the McRib Anti-McMassacree Movement

And if you want to join the movement, all you have to do is

Sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar… With feelin'

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

That’s terrible.  If you want to bring this country back together

And avoid another Civil War much less a World War

You are going to have to sing much better than that.  Here we go.

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”

THAT’S BEAUTIFUL!!!  ONE MORE TIME!!!

“You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant

Drive right up, the Drive Thru’s in the back

It doesn’t cost more than a few greenbacks

You can get a McRib when you want at any McDonalds restaurant”