I'm Not Judging Oliver Anthony Yet-- I Prefer To Give Musicians The Benefit Of The Doubt

He Can Still Grow Up To Be A Billy Bragg

Wednesday night, Natalie Grant, a 9-time Grammy nominated “Christian artist,” sang the national anthem at the GOP debate. As you can hear, the America-hatinhg Fox anchors talked right over most of her performance (about her!). The crowd pretended to be interested in her and the song but they were far more genuinely enthusiastic about Rich Men North of Richmond by Oliver Anthony, a current MAGA anthem, which the Republicans immediately started talking about as soon as they got Grant off the stage. Or it was a MAGA anthem. The song’s take on politicians, miners, taxes, welfare and other issues from a struggling working man's perspective (Anthony’s authentic trademark) reminded me a little of the pro-Nixon construction workers of my younger days. It was quickly appropriated by the far right. The song conveys a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction in a world controlled by wealthy people and emphasizes the struggles faced by ordinary people, who work for low wages without finding any fulfillment or joy. He hits out against inequality and the rich men who control the reality non-rich men have to contend with. He sings about how he wishes politicians would prioritize the well-being of people, especially the working class and those in need. He is singing for marginalized people who aren’t taken seriously by wealthy elites. Not your grandfather’s GOP— and not your grandfather’s Democratic Party either. Here:

"Rich Men North Of Richmond"

I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day

Overtime hours for bullshit pay

So I can sit out here and waste my life away

Drag back home and drown my troubles away

It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to

For people like me and people like you

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true

But it is, oh, it is

Livin' in the new world

With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond

Lord knows they all just wanna have total control

Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do

And they don't think you know, but I know that you do

'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end

'Cause of rich men north of Richmond

I wish politicians would look out for miners

And not just minors on an island somewhere

Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat

And the obese milkin' welfare

Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds

Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds

Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground

'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down

Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to

For people like me and people like you

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true

But it is, oh, it is

Livin' in the new world

With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond

Lord knows they all just wanna have total control

Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do

And they don't think you know, but I know that you do

'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end

'Cause of rich men north of Richmond

I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day

Overtime hours for bullshit pay

The song debuted at number one on Billboard (the first artist ever to launch atop the list with no prior chart history in any form) and quickly turned into a massive hit on YouTube, iTunes and Spotify. It’s been adopted by right-wing influencers like Kari Lake, Marjorie Traitor Greene, Matt Walsh and Joe Rogan. But, according to Billboard, the right-wingers who helped him reach the top, are not happy that he’s been calling for for unity and diversity. He infuriated his fascist followers at a show last weekend in Moyock, North Carolina when he told Fox interviewers that “We are the melting pot of the world. And that’s what makes us strong, our diversity. And we need to learn to harness that and appreciate it and not use it as a political tool to keep everyone separate from it.” On top of that, the rightists are accusing the Appalachian born and bred singer from Farmville, Virginia if faking his accent.

An X user, whose pinned tweet has links to videos praising a leader of the American Nazi Party, called Anthony an "algorithm boosted 'based' red beard hillbilly song guy" who was "faking his accent."

The user also took offence to the fact the singer said that "diversity is our strength."

And they were not the only one lashing out at Mr Anthony. One user said he was trying to "become a rich man north of Richmond," while another came to a conclusion that many of Mr Anthony's left-wing critics already voiced; that he was an industry plant meant to enrapture Republican consumers starving for conservative media.

“These companies are testing the waters to see if they can create fake Republican singers to make more money off the Republican demographic,” user LomzLomz wrote. “And it works people don't see the bigger picture there is no invisible hand of the CIA only corporate string.”

Popular Twitter commenter KrangTNelson found the conservatives' swift reversal entertaining.

"Conservatives got a hold of a clip of the astroturfed country song guy saying America is a 'melting pot' and now he's fucking cancelled. Also potentially a CIA agent," they wrote.

Another user pointed out how conservatives insisting there was nothing inherently classist or racist about Anthony's song immediately turned on him for not being racist enough.

“I love how they’ve spent the last couple weeks insisting there’s nothing racist about the neo-Confederate welfare queen song but the moment the singer expresses support for a racially integrated society he gets cancelled for being woke,” a user with the handle Capricoda said.

Despite the song's number 1 status on country charts that take in streaming numbers, the song is getting virtually no [radio] airplay, according to an analysis conducted by Variety Magazine.

If Anthony can’t figure out if he’s right or left— he says he’s dead center— that’s never been a problem for legendary singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who responded to Anthony’s song a couple of days ago with one of his own, “Rich Men Earning North Of A Million,” embedded at the bottom of the page. Bragg said he felt Woody Guthrie whispering in his ear to write a kind of rejoinder. Woody: “Help that guy out. Let him know there’s a way to deal with those problems he’s singing about. Aside from the song, Bragg penned anOpEd for The Guardian, Oliver Anthony’s divisive song claiming solidarity with workers only benefits the rich who exploit them. Bragg began with the last words of the great union songwriter Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn: organize” Then he seemed to address Anthony: “If you hope to inspire, rather than just providing a litany of problems, then it’s necessary for your song to offer some vision of redemption. While it is clearly beyond the scope of the songwriter to provide a cure for society’s ills, there is a role to play in calling out where you perceive the problem to lie and suggesting a possible way forward.”

At first glimpse, the video clip looked like my kind of music: a young bearded guy up in the woods of Appalachia, playing a resonator guitar. As soon as he started singing, I was on board. “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day, overtime hours for bullshit pay.” Preach, brother! When Anthony sang of “rich men north of Richmond, they want to have total control” I had in my mind corporate America, the tech bro billionaires whose companies monitor their workers all the way to the bathroom and back.

I was still with him when he highlighted “folks on the street with nothing to eat” but was brought up sharp when he followed it with “and the obese milkin’ welfare.” Whoa! What is he saying here? Homeless hungry people need help, but not if they’re overweight? When the next line attacked short, fat people who receive welfare only to spend it on chocolate biscuits, I figured the song was a parody. Why didn’t he rhyme “tax” with “snacks”, the songwriter in me thought. But it isn’t a parody.

Anthony really does punch down on the poor. The lives of ordinary working people are being torn apart by the rich, he laments, but we can fix it if we cut welfare— and taxes too. Listening to the lyrics in that context, I came to understand why the song had gone viral among rightwing figures in the US. It’s a classic example of the divisive narrative that bosses have used to pit worker against worker since the days of Joe Hill. If the poor are fighting one another over racial hierarchy or cultural grievance, their anger will be directed away from the people responsible for their plight— the rich who exploit those in work and abandon those in need.

Anthony has said that he hoped the song would capture the voice of blue-collar workers who feel like they can’t get ahead, which is a laudable aim, but he doesn’t seem aware that there is a remedy for that problem, one which empowers working people. His home state Virginia is currently undergoing a resurgence in union activism. Local radio station WVTF reported last year that the push to organise is being led by young people around Anthony’s age. Joining a union won’t solve all of the problems he sings about, but if he really wants to stop rich men having total control, then organising in the workplace is surely the first step to gaining some sense of agency?

…Woody knew that cynicism was the enemy of all of us who want to make a better world, so I’m ignoring those who accuse Anthony of deliberately stoking the culture wars that have divided America. I hear someone struggling to make sense of a world in which help is hard to come by. I wish Oliver Anthony all the best with his newfound fame. I hope it allows him to make a living playing music. But I know from experience that he’s going to face a lot of scrutiny from partisan players demanding he clarify his politics.

I wrote to offer him the perspective of someone whose understanding of solidarity and songwriting was shaped 40 years ago by the miner’s strike. The lesson I learned is as relevant today as it was back then: There is power in a union.

UPDATE:

Oliver Anthony was not pleased about Fox using his song in the Republican debate: "It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them... I wrote that song about those people, you know? So for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. But it was funny kind of seeing the response to it. That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It's a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song's written about the people on that stage."