‘Come Back, Barack’: Chance the Rapper Sings Emotional Ode to Obama on SNL

A year ago, as Saturday Night Live’s musical guest, Chance the Rapper sang the Run-DMC parody “Jingle Barack” about President Obama’s last Christmas in the White House. This week, in his SNL hosting debut, Chance followed that up with a Thanksgiving slow jam: “Come Back, Barack.”

Joined by Kenan Thompson and Chris Redd, the Boyz II Men-style song was about how much they are missing the 44th president almost one year into 45’s first term.

“We didn’t know just what we had,” the chorus went. “Now things are looking bad. Like really bad, like World War bad, like nuclear bad.” As Chance added, “When I think of change, the only change I want is you!”

“It’s been a long time Barack, almost as long as since a guy talked over a record like this,” Thompson intoned. “For real, why would you leave us? Oh, ’cause you had to because of the Constitution? But you can come back, right? Oh, you can’t? Because that would undermine the very institutions that we're barely holding on to as it is? I see. I guess we’re stuck with this dude for a while then. Maybe you can come back and make a speech? How much would that cost? For real? Oh, no, we definitely can’t afford that.”