Henry Ford:
Mister Motor City meets the menace in red!
(The Red Menace is a Cold War-era term used by their opponents like the United States to refer to the Soviet Union and other nations or groups that followed communist ideology. Having helped to turn Detroit, Michigan into a major hub of car production, earning it the nickname "the Motor City," Ford serves as the embodiment of capitalist entrepreneurship, and the natural opponent of the man who inspired communism.)
My lines are of production; your lines are bread!
(Ford immediately establishes differences between himself and Marx. A production line, simply, is a line of workers, machines or equipment in a factory or manufacturing facility that passes work from one workstation to the next until the manufacture of the product is complete. The word “breadline” is something that, in itself, has become almost synonymous with communism. Soviet economy was, to quote Peter Gatrell, “an economy of absolute shortage”. Based on this comparison, Ford boasts that his rap lines are more elaborate and better executed, calling his opponent's lines plain as bread. This could also reference the stereotype that countries with communist governments are poor and the citizens line up for bread.)
Disassembling timepieces is how I got my start!
(When Ford was a teenager, he was known as a watch repairmen by his friends and neighbors as he often dismantled and reassembled the timepieces on their watches.)
Now watch me tear your ideology apart!
(The ideologies of capitalism and communism are very opposed to one another. As a capitalist, Ford wants to argue against communism at all costs and tear apart Marxism like he did with watches when he was younger.)
You scream, "Unite the workers! Free the class slaves!"
(The political slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" is one of the rallying cries from The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it was popularised in English as "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!". The essence of the slogan is that members of the working classes throughout the world should cooperate to defeat capitalism and achieve victory in the class conflict.)
"...Lose your chains, trade 'em in for mass graves!"
(Mass killings under communist regimes in the 20th century involved diverse methods such as executions, forced labor, deportation, famine, starvation, and imprisonment. These incidents, occurring in different contexts, have been labeled as genocides or crimes against humanity. Various terms, including classicide, democide, red holocaust, and politicide, have been employed to characterize these tragic occurrences. Any attempt to estimate a total number of killings under communist regimes depends greatly on definitions, ranging from a low of 10–20 million to as high as 148 million.)
Mao and Stalin: wow! Appalling mounds of body bags!
(Critics of Marx's ideology often cite the regimes of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong, both of whom were inspired by Marx's teachings. During Mao's "Great Leap Forward", it is estimated that around 40 million Chinese citizens starved to death as a result of the communist policies implemented in China, while Stalin's regime was estimated to have killed around 12 million people through similar policies. Ford criticizes Marx for this, saying that his ideas were what killed all those people.)
When a world leader likes you, that's a red flag!
(This line serves as a double entendre referring to both the color red being traditionally associated with communism (as in, for instance, the flags of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and Democratic Kampuchea), as well as "red flag" meaning a sign that there is a problem. Following on from his previous line, Ford is stating that due to the amount of violent and repressive leaders associated with communism, the act of liking Marx alone is enough to raise suspicion. )
I produced with my two hands! You're a destitute tramp
(Marx spent most of his life in poverty, or destitution, and since Ford worked as a mechanical engineer, he claims that Marx's poverty is a result of him not working hard enough.)
Scheming to trade bootstraps in for food stamps!
(The phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" means to improve one's station through hard work and self-reliance with very little to no outside help. This is a common expression in American society, which tends to be highly individualistic. Food stamps are a form of welfare that help low-income individuals and families afford food and other basic necessities. Ford claims that Marx and his ideology wish to remove individualism and replace it with reliance on the government.)
Any Prussian trying to seize my private property
(Marx was born in the Kingdom of Prussia, part of modern-day Germany. Core tenets of Marx's philosophy, as detailed in The Communist Manifesto, include "seizing the means of production," and the abolishment of privately-owned property. Henry Ford, being a property owner, takes offense to this, and continues his threat in the next line.)
Will catch a torque wrench to his private parts properly!
(Ford threatens to use a torque wrench, a tool often used to make cars, to hit Marx in the "private parts", or testicles, which are known for being very sensitive.)
Who takes advice from a broke slob? It's laughable!
(Marx was poor for much of his life, having been exiled from France as a result of his political writing. It wasn't until Friedrich Engels began financially supporting him that he started to become financially stable. Ford thinks it is ridiculous that so many people took Marx's teachings seriously when for much of his life, he was not a wealthy or successful person.)
I wouldn't wipe my tailpipe with your Das Krapital!
(Automobiles such as those made by Ford have tailpipes whose main function is to vent the remains of spent fuel, also called exhaust gases. Ford uses this as a play on words with Das Kapital, Marx's famous treatise against capitalism, to say that he wouldn't wipe his own ass with the material from said essay, calling it crap.)
If you'd saved a penny for each daughter you named Jenny,
(Karl Marx had seven children with his wife, Jenny von Westphalen. All of his daughters were named Jenny.)
You might notta needed to bury quite so many!
(Five of Marx's children died while he was still alive.)
Karl Marx:
Who's that proud Young Hegelian, heavy drinking, card-carrying,
(Young Hegelians were followers of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and their ideology influenced Marx's thoughts on capital and economics. Marx was also an alcoholic, but how serious his drinking habits were is unknown. Card-carrying is a term to mean someone who proudly boasts their qualities. "Card-carrying" also refers to someone belonging to a group, the context most often being associated with workers' unions and Communism. Karl Marx belonged to several such groups within his lifetime, including the Communist Party and the aforementioned Young Hegelians, as well as founding the International Workingmen's Association.)
Future thinking, Lincoln letter inking proletarian?
(Marx describes himself as ahead of his time, and was also pen pals with Abraham Lincoln, with whom they exchanged letters regularly. Proletarian means someone who fights for the proletariat, or working class. Incidentally, Lincoln's name is also a marque used for Ford's luxury cars.)
It's Karl Marx! Prepare to be rhyme stomped!
(Marx follows up the card-carrying by confirming that all the qualities he listed can be perfectly attributed to him. He then warns Ford that he's about to lose the rap battle.)
I'm dropping you like Hitler dropped your name in Mein Kampf!
(Marx counters Ford's accusations of inspiring murderous leaders by referencing the fact that he was the only American that Adolf Hitler spoke of favorably as Hitler called Ford as a "great man" in Mein Kampf, Hitler's autobiographical manifesto detailing his political ideology, antisemitism, and plans for Germany.)
My concepts didn't cause mass graves, greed did!
(Marx again rebukes Ford's earlier claim that his teachings killed millions of people, claiming that it was the greedy mindsets of the regimes, their leaders, and the people who they ruled that led to so many people dying. Some defenders of communism make similar arguments when faced with similar criticisms.)
You'd get that from books, but you didn't read shit!
(One of the most common sources used to denounce communism as having killed millions is the "Black Book of Communism", a 1997 book written by Stephane Courtois and Nicolas Werth, detailing the horrors committed by communist regimes in the 20th century. Ford grew up on the countryside and had no formal education, and was not able to read because of this. Marx says there's no way Ford can confidently claim his ideas killed millions, as he could not have read the Black Book of Communism, or any other books detailing communist atrocities.)
Your "self-made man" story's dung from a Taurus!
(Ford once described himself as a self-made man, but in a roundabout way, Marx finds this claim to be "bullshit", again using a play on words. "Taurus" is the Latin word for "bull" as well as the name of a zodiac constellation that looks like a bull (and is also Marx's star sign in Western astrology); and "dung" is a term for feces, or "shit"; but Taurus is also a model name for several of Ford's midsize cars, so "dung" can also refer to car exhaust, meaning this could be Marx's way of saying that Ford is full of hot air.)
Your daddy's two hands gave you a free farm and forest!
(Marx directly rebuts Ford's brag about producing with his "two hands." He mentions Ford inheriting a sizeable farm from his father, William Ford, which helped sustain his family's livelihood during his formative years.)
You were the first of six kids till the seventh killed your mother!
(Ford was the eldest of his parents' seven children. While Ford's mother was giving birth to his youngest sibling, both of them died, much to Ford's devastation. This line is Marx's response to Ford mocking the deaths of his daughters.)
Maybe that's why you spied on your workers like Big Brother!
(Big Brother is a totalitarian dictator from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, which is a satire of authoritarianism. Since Ford was the eldest child, he was a literal big brother to his siblings. Marx makes the comparison between Big Brother and the Ford Sociological Program, a sector of the Ford Motor Company dedicated solely to ensuring their employees' moral and social righteousness. The staff within the sociological department consisted of 50 investigators, which would eventually grow to over 200, who would make regular visits to employee households to check up on their homes, children, and spouses. Marx suggests that he takes on the role of an abusive "Big Brother" to his workers due to his mother's death.)
Your Model T-total lack of style is killing me!
(One of Ford's most famous cars was the Ford Model T. Marx makes a pun and says that Ford completely lacks rapping ability. "T-total" is also a pun on Teetotalism, the practice of refraining from drinking alcohol; Ford was an avid teetotaler.)
We can't take shit from you according to ability!
(“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a socialist quote popularized by Marx. It means that the work one puts in will be compensated by the society fulfilling his needs. Through this slogan, Marx is saying that since Ford never actually did any labor, nobody could give him compensation for said labor, or rather his lack thereof. It can also refer to the expression "to take shit," or to be insulted by someone. Marx is saying he can't be dissed by Ford due to Ford's inability to provide those disses in the first place.)
Do what your first car can't and back up!
(The first working car Henry Ford built was the Quadricycle of which he did his first trial run in 1896. A prototype vehicle, the Quadricycle was made of wood and had a neutral gear, but was unable to reverse and had no brakes. Marx makes a double play on the Quadricycle's inability to back up in reverse and telling Ford to "back up", or give up on the battle.)
Beating me is like your city in Brazil: nuts!
(Fordlandia was an industrial town in Brazil, founded by the Ford Motor Company in 1928 to cultivate rubber. The venture is agreed to be a failure, as none of the rubber farmed ever made it into a tire manufactured by the company, and synthetic rubber was found shortly afterward, which rendered the entire city obsolete. Thus, the idea behind the city was foolish, or "nuts," in reference to the tree and fruit commonly found in the country. Marx is saying that trying to beat him in this battle is equally as crazy. This is also a pun on Brazil nuts, a popular health food.)
Henry Ford:
Whew! Don't step that close without some beard shampoo, son!
(Ford tells Marx to back away from him because his beard is dissheveled and smells bad.)
You lived in Cologne — looked like you could've used some!
(Marx resided in Cologne, Germany for many years and pokes fun that despite living in the birthplace of the perfume of the same name, he looks unclean.)
I drip with style like a dipstick drips oil!
(A dipstick is a part of a car, used to measure how much oil is in the engine. "Drip" is a modern slang term used to refer to a stylish or flashy appearance. Ford compares his "drip", or style, to how a dipstick may drip with oil after being used to measure the oil level in a car's engine.)
You look as sick as your chronic dick boils!
(Marx complained in his letters about his boils; nowadays it is known that he had a skin condition called hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands — found mainly in the armpits and groin — become blocked and inflamed.)
I'm mass-producing abuse on a utopian hobo!
(Ford is the forefather of mass production, as he invented the assembly line to mass produce personal vehicles. He takes another jab at Marx's past of poverty and at the belief that communists want a utopia, or a perfect world.)
I'm throwing you for loops like the F in my logo!
(The logo for the Ford Motor Company has a loop in the "F" in Ford. However, it is commonly misremembered as not having a loop in it, and many people have claimed to experience the "Mandela effect" when they noticed there was a loop, meaning that the loop, metaphorically, "threw them for loops".)
I gave men work! You brought nothing but harm!
(Ford prides himself in creating jobs while Communist tyrants and some world leaders who claimed to follow Marx have actually been dangerous dictators.)
Take your bourgeois pigshit back to Animal Farm!
(In Communist philosophy, the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during industrialization, and whose primary concern now is the preservation of their private property and capital at the expense of those below them. Animal Farm is an allegorical novella about the Soviet Union written by George Orwell and published in 1945, in which a group of animals on a farm overthrow the farmer and form their own society akin to communism, where all animals were to be treated equal. Led by the pigs, the farm gradually turned into a dictatorship, similar to Stalin's leadership of Russia. Orwell, a democratic socialist, meant for this book to be a satirical allegorical representation of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing rise of Stalin, which he considered a betrayal of this revolution. The farmer in this story represents the bourgeoisie, and Ford tells Marx to leave his ideology in the "pigshit" (a pun on the literal pigs in the story) fairy tale that Orwell wrote about it.)
Karl Marx:
Yeesh! Your factory conditions were bleak!
(Marx condemns the safety conditions in Ford's factories, which were very unsafe for its employees because...)
Crammed with machines, cranking out four severed fingers a week!
(...it was not uncommon for factory employees to lose fingers and other limbs in the machinery. Such conditions would lead to the creation of labor unions.)
You controlled what employees could think, drink, and eat,
(The Ford Sociological Program ensured that his employees would be of greater benefit to him, even if that meant controlling their personal lives. Any employee who was found to do something he disapproved of would lose their job.)
And when they marched for better wages, shot them dead in the street!
(This refers to the Ford Hunger March in 1932, also known as the Ford Massacre, which began with a demonstration of unemployed auto workers in Detroit, Michigan during the Great Depression. During the demonstration, a confrontation occurred that resulted in security guards employed by the Ford Motor Company and Dearborn Police Department to begin shooting at the workers, killing four. Many others were injured in the shooting, and a fifth worker died later in the hospital.)
In truth, what you produced were alienated working men
(Marx rebuffs Ford's brag about bringing men work, and brings up the consequences of his working environment. Marx's Theory of Alienation details that the working man loses his own goals and ability to build relationships while working under the bourgeoisie. In this instance, Ford would be this higher party, as he owns the means of production; more specifically, the mass-production model that he helped prosper.)
Who would clock into Detroit and lose themselves like Eminem,
(Eminem is a successful Detroit-based rapper, with "Lose Yourself" being one of his best-selling and most well-known songs. Marx is stating that Ford's workers lose their sense of self upon entering his factory.)
And now your Great Lake state ain't exactly a great sight! (Uh!)
(Michigan is comprised of two peninsulas surrounded by the North American Great Lakes, the largest system of freshwater lakes in the world, and Michigan is nicknamed the "The Great Lake State." In recent years, however, parts of Michigan, especially Detroit and Flint, which were once thriving, became known for its urban decay, largely due in part to the Ford Motor Company outsourcing its labor, and other manufacturing plants being abandoned in the late 20th century. Many of those former plants sit abandoned to this day.)
You were worse for Michigan than Flint's water pipes!
(The aforementioned outsourcing of labor by the Ford Motor Company is here compared negatively to water pipes in Flint, Michigan. The Flint water crisis began in 2014, when the city switched its drinking water from Detroit's supply to the Flint River in a cost-saving move. A lack of oversight and aging pipes meant that this water had been contaminated with lead from the corroded pipes, resulting in widespread sickness and death.)
Henry Ford:
(Ugh!) Your gripes about oppression don't leave me impressed!
(Ford isn't moved by Marx's criticisms of his treatment of his employees.)
You're not hot, Karl. That's just shit on your chest!
(A "Hot Karl" is a sexual act involving defecating on the partner's chest. Ford is saying that Marx isn't hot stuff. To get something off one's chest means to confess one's repressed thoughts to relieve their mind. Ford is calling Marx out on griping instead of rapping, getting things, or "shit" off his chest.)
For a man who's stateless, you got an awful lot to say!
(Marx was stateless, meaning that he wasn't a citizen of any country. Despite this, Ford makes a pun on the word "state" and claims that Marx is making a lot of statements, or has "an awful lot to say".)
I'll pay you "Five Dollars a Day" to go away!
(In 1914, Henry Ford took the then-radical step of paying workers $5 per day for a 40-hour work week; he called this compensation "profit-sharing." Ford's turnover problem disappeared. In addition, Ford workers could buy the cars they produced, benefitting the company.)
Your buddy Engels bankrolled you with his textile mills!
(Friedrich Engels was Marx's friend and partner who he co-authored the Communist Manifesto with. Engels's family was wealthy and owned large cotton-textile mills in Prussia and England.)
I guess the Capitalists are cool when they're paying your bills!
(Ford accuses Marx of hypocrisy, claiming that he's fine with capitalism so long as he's personally profiting from it.)
You're a hypocrite; a nitwitted schlub with substance issues!
(Ford again accuses Marx of hypocrisy. Ford also thinks Marx's stupidity is a result of his history of substance abuse.)
Step off your soapbox! Take the soap with you!
(A soapbox is a raised platform used for impromptu speeches, often about political topics. The term comes from the practice of speakers standing on wooden crates that were originally used to ship soap and other dry goods. Communists have used soapboxes. For example, the Communist Party in New York had soapbox speakers on street corners. Communists also held meetings in the Sons of Israel Hall. Also Ford is telling Marx to take the soap and take a shower because Ford thinks Marx is a bum.)
Karl Marx:
Look, dummy. Sharing money is the communist vision!
(Marx states, as per his theories, that uniform distribution of wealth is an ideal in Communist societies and that collaboration with Engels is in line with his values.)
Engels' bank was the crank that got the revolution spinning!
(Some of the earliest automobiles used a hand crank to charge the engine assembly into powering up. Similarly, Marx rebuts Ford's accusations of hypocrisy over Engels funding him saying that Engels himself supported his ideology and it was the funding provided by him that helped spread his socialist agenda.)
We gave everything to see the common people advance!
(Marx says that the money he and Engels made went straight to aiding the working class.)
I'm so down with the cause, I even pawned my own pants!
(Marx says he believes in communism so much that he sold his own pants, an exaggeration on the idea that wealthy people should give their surplus belongings to those in need.)
You grew so out of touch, you sabotaged your only kid!
(Henry Ford's only child, Edsel, was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1919 until his death in 1943. While the pair were close, there were many unhealthy aspects in their relationship, and Edsel often disagreed with his father's decisions, leading the elder Ford to humiliate him in public such as reprimanding him in front of his subordinates and once firing an entire accounting department without Edsel's knowledge.)
Edsel's stomach cancer showed more love than you did!
(Edsel Ford died of metastatic stomach cancer in 1943, which led to his father briefly regaining presidency of the company despite his ailing health before ceding the presidency to his grandson, Edsel's son Henry Ford II, in 1945. Marx suggests that given Henry's previously mentioned treatment of his son, the stomach cancer could be said to have been more loving towards Edsel.)
So congrats! Your legacy is in ashes,
(Marx says Ford's legacy is ruined for the reasons he's about to state...)
Remembered as the fascist sympathizing cause of climate change and car crashes!
(While he later recanted such views, for much of his life Ford spouted antisemitic views, publishing numerous articles in his hometown newspaper that accused Jewish people of a vast conspiracy to control America. These articles were required to be distributed in every Ford dealership nationwide, and were eventually published in a book entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which was distributed widely across the United States and Europe. The book, and his views in general, came to influence many throughout the world, including high-ranking members of the Nazi Party in Germany such as Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. This culminated in the Germans giving Ford the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner. In addition, Ford was a member of the America First Committee, an isolationist pressure group opposing US entry into WW2 which had many members with pro-fascist and antisemitic views. Beyond his personal beliefs, Ford's promotion of the automobile and industrialization at large can also be cited as a major cause of climate change, as exhaust from motor vehicles (and the factories that make them) produces greenhouse gases that directly contribute to the warming of the Earth. The prominence of cars, including the infamously volatile Ford Pinto, also leads to many otherwise preventable deaths from crashes and accidents. For all of this, Marx says that Ford's legacy is forever tarnished.)
From your newspaper to your Nazi factory cross the pond,
(Alongside the previously mentioned antisemitic writings published by Ford, which may have inspired Hitler and the Nazis at large, the German subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company was co-opted by the Nazi Party and forced to produce weapons for the German army through the use of slave labor.)
Frankly, Hank, it's clear Auschwitz side you were on!
(Marx addresses Ford directly and honestly as "Hank", a common diminutive of Henry. The Auschwitz Concentration Camps complex (which consisted of over 40 containment and extermination camps) was the largest and deadliest concentration camp used by Nazi Germany with an estimated 1.3 million people, including Jews, Poles, Romanis, homosexuals, mentally challenged people, and Soviet prisoners of war being sent to the camp and 1.1 million of them dying there. Marx makes a pun with Auschwitz and “[as to] which”, and remarks that Ford, through his antisemitism, supports these actions.)
This battle's been a blowout like that hemorrhage in your head!
(Marx makes a triple pun on the word "blowout"; while a blowout can refer to the sudden breakdown of a vehicle or a rapid loss of tire pressure, Marx instead claims that the battle has handily favored him over Ford, also a blowout. Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 7, 1947, ergo suffering a blowout because the blood vessels in his brain ruptured, 4 years after his son's death.)
I'll leave a Ford as expected: found on road, dead!
("Found On Road Dead" is a derogatory backronym of "Ford" from around the 1970s, used to suggest that the cars break down easily. Cars manufactured by Ford are often mocked as being poor quality and thus more likely to break down. Marx says he will leave Ford for dead, just like a broken-down car left on the road.)
