Boom, Like That

As a long time San Diegan, who grew up with the Kroc family in our society, I'd like to clear up a misconception. In some other song forums, it's misstated that Kroc brought McDonald's from America to Europe, while he might of also done that, he discovered the little hamburger stand while selling pre-made milkshake mix, convinced them to use their name, and Kroc went about destroying every mom and pop store in California 1st, then spreading outward. When someone in a town wouldn't sell, Kroc would build a store across the street, undersell them to bankruptcy, and in many cases, the family would chose suicide as their only way out of the debt, ( stick a hose in their mouth ) relates to a practice of people starting p their cars inside their garage, run a hose from the exhaust into the window, and suffocate, family would remove the hose before the insurance adjuster arrived, look like an accident, and the family could collect enough to get out of debt. Ray Kroc was a real sweetheart.

His second wife, Joan Kroc, however, was a truly decent human being who spent the bulk of her post Ray death time, donating huge amounts to charity, usually anonymously. She also started a great shelter for the homeless which gave them addresses and phone numbers, making it easier for them to seek jobs.

If ever there was a yin and a yang, it was the Krocs.

This song was the highlight of my seeing Mark live in Portland OR in 2005.

"dog eat dog, rat eat rat" is a quote from Kroc taken from his autobiography ("Grinding It Out"), which Knopfler seems to have read, as he takes a significant portion of the lyrics from there. The "put a hose in their mouth" is another Kroc quote, among several others.

Uh..... You couldn't be more wrong Chuckewe, about pretty much all of what you said.

After the McDonald brothers refused to sell Kroc their very first store — the Big M — Kroc opened up a McDonald’s right across the street and drove them out of business. “If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water,” he said. “It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way — of survival of the fittest.”

And about Ray Krocs wife.. Joan Kroc was a B*tch!

When Ozzie Smith was upset about not getting paid more $$$ when his contract was renewed by the San Diego Padres (owned by Ray & Joan Kroc) he put an ad in the SD Tribune that said "Major leage baseball player looking for part time work to supplement income". Joan Krocs response was to publicly offer him a job as a assitant gardener on their estate.

I really enjoy this song, primarily for the music. Mark Knopfler is absolutely phenomenal, love singing along to this song.

I don't really have anything to add about the lyrics, everything's already been pretty neatly covered. I do quite enjoy them as well, though, Mark's voice is great.

Listened to this song a bunch of times, while fixing up a ratty apartment, humming along, singing along with a few phrases, but never paid close attention to the lyrics. One night I tapped the "lyrics" icon and was amazed when it dawned on me, finally, that it was the McDonald's story. Mark Knopfler astounds me with his musicality blended with his literacy. And his voice with that throwaway casual style like he doesn't care if you "get it" or not. What a talent! It's always rewarding to "listen hard" to Mark Knopfler.

It's probably best to put Kroc into a proper context. Kroc was by no means a saint, but he's often portrayed as a thief, and it isn't quite as evil as everyone makes it out to be, even in this song. First, he paid $2.7M to the McDonald brothers for the company, which when adjusted for inflation today is around $27M. That isn't a small amount to sell just your company on paper, without selling a location, despite the brothers' claim later that they had a handshake deal for profits with Kroc, which they claimed only after Kroc had grown the franchisees to such a degree. What McDonald's would eventually become as Kroc's company cannot be compared to the inception that the McDonald bros had created. They would have never grown the company to what it eventually became. Kroc wanted them to grow into franchising even before he offered to buy the whole thing from them, and the brothers resisted. They didn't want to work that hard. They reduced their successful drive-in restaurant to the Speed-Dee system to lesson their workload, not to increase it. In it's proper context, Kroc spread wealth to others beyond the McDonald brothers, even if the competition had forced smaller restaurants out of business because they could not compete. Kroc created an industry that many, many people were able to prosper from. Many McDonald's franchise owners started out working at a McDonalds. These business owners never would have had the opportunity at all if Kroc hadn't grown the company. Putting the fast food wages debate aside, the McDonalds corporation employs a lot of people, beyond the staff that work in the restaurants. This addition to the world economy would not happen if it wasn't for Kroc. None of this is to defend Kroc for being a ruthless business person. But no one cares if Apple or Microsoft has put small computer companies out of business. Apple buys IP from small companies all the time, and no one cares. The public tends to pick and choose who is evil at doing business. Despite maybe being a d*ck, Kroc does deserves some credit besides "stealing" from the McDonalds.

this song kicks major ass mark knopfler is a legend and this son is about ray kroc the guy who brought mcdonalds across america the solos in this song are fucking amazing.

does anyone know what the "Dog Eat Dog, Rat eat rat"-part means?

Dictionary says that dog-eat-dog means "characterized by ruthless or savage competition." Ray Kroc was a dog-eat-dog businessman. Usually the prase is used in the sentence "it's a dog-eat-dog world."

Great song by knofler. best on tha shang-ru