Wendy’s has spent decades selling square burgers, Hot ’n Crispy fries, and Frostys. On September 23, it added something stranger to the menu: a six-track emo EP.
Songs to Listen to in a Wendy’s Parking Lot is not a 15-second jingle or an AI novelty. Produced and written by Matt Squire — whose credits include Panic! at the Disco, All Time Low, 3OH!3, Simple Plan, and Sum 41 — and released in partnership with Rise Records, the project recruits real voices from the scene and treats late-night drive-thru runs like diary entries. The result sits at the intersection of brand marketing and the current emo/pop-punk revival: ridiculous on paper, surprisingly committed in execution.
Wendy’s has done music before. In 2018 it dropped the hip-hop mixtape We Beefin’?. This time the chain leaned into the cultural moment instead of fighting it. Emo and pop-punk have been cycling back through playlists and TikTok; Wendy’s simply put a combo meal in the passenger seat and turned the headlights off.
Songs to Listen to in a Wendy’s Parking Lot
Listen to Songs to Listen to in a Wendy’s Parking Lot on Spotify · EP · Wendy’s · 2026 · 6 songs
The Tracklist
Each song features a different guest vocalist. The titles do most of the heavy lifting.
- “She Said She Didn’t Want Fries” — Matty Mullins (Memphis May Fire, Anberlin)
Opening statement. Mullins brings the metalcore grit the project needs so it doesn’t collapse into pure joke. - “Salt in the Wound” — Chloe Kinnon (Winona Fighter)
Pop-punk and indie-rock bite. The salt-and-wound metaphor writes itself when the fries are involved. - “I Miss the Sunroom” — Shane Told (Silverstein)
The most specific piece of brand nostalgia on the record. Told mourns the glass-front sunrooms that used to sit on older Wendy’s locations — the kind of detail that only works if you actually remember them. - “The Best Combo Meal on the Worst Night of My Life” — Beau Bokan (blessthefall)
Peak parking-lot emo. Bokan sells the premise without winking too hard: the meal is the only thing that went right. - “It’s Not a Phase, It’s a 10PC” — Derek DiScanio (State Champs)
The pop-punk anthem of the set. Chicken nuggets as identity statement. It should not work. It kind of does. - “My Frosty’s Funeral” — Kat Leon (Holy Wars)
Closer. Leon gives the melted dessert a proper send-off. If you have ever sat in a car watching a Frosty turn to soup, you already know the mood.
Lyrics weave in actual Wendy’s language — “Always Fresh, Never Frozen,” square-burger salvation, Frosty-and-fries togetherness — without turning every chorus into a commercial. Squire’s production stays in the mid-2000s-to-present emo lane: crunchy guitars, big choruses, the occasional scream, enough melody that you can sing along while waiting for the window.
Does It Work?
As advertising, it is sharp. The chain understood that the parking lot is already a ritual space — breakup meals, post-shift decompression, lonely late-night runs — and simply scored it. As music, it is a well-made novelty record rather than a scene-defining statement. The guest list keeps it from feeling cheap. Mullins, Told, Bokan, and DiScanio in particular treat the material like a real session instead of a paycheck cameo.
The limitation is built in: six songs about one restaurant will never escape the gimmick. That is also the point. Wendy’s did not pretend this was the next Deja Entendu. It made the joke, hired people who know how to write a chorus, and let the internet do the rest.
If you already live in that world — the one where a 10-piece and a Frosty can feel like the only reliable thing on a bad night — the EP lands. If you do not, it is still funnier and better produced than most brand music. Stream it once with the windows down. Then decide whether you need a combo to finish the listen.
