'Rich Men North of Richmond' Singer Oliver Anthony Slams Use of Song at Republican Debate: 'I Wrote That Song About Those People'

If he'd only written the first verse, I might believe it.

Exactly. Don't be complaining about people on social services and then be surprised when your comments are being held up by other bigots.
Exactly! It starts out alright and then just nose dives into a pool of bullshit. He knows exactly what he was trying to say when writing it.
Watch him come out with a song placating to the left with medicare for all and climate change next.
- I don't listen to country: can someone say what he said that's so controversial?

SLAMMED! Feels like most headlines are written by 12 year olds these days

It makes it easy to know which articles I don't need to bother reading
It’s felt that way for a decade
It's subliminal marketing for a yet to be filmed Space Jam 3.
- Space Jam 3: come on and SLAM
- Space jam 3 but there hasn't even been a space jam 2 yet

I find it odd that that singer doesn't understand his fan-base.

Yeah, it seems a bit strange. At least he's not a grifter (yet). Or, maybe he's just really bad at grifting.
His politics and messaging is inconsistent. He's got Reagan-era tax and welfare talking points mixed in with qanon pedophile conspiracy lines. Then makes a video where it sounds like he thinks he's a centrist. I guess the Overton window really has shifted, lol.
- It's not hard to imagine how someone within the conservative cesspit would end up with a worldview that's a complete mess.
  It takes education that not everybody has access to to see through the junk science of neoliberalism, transphobia, climate denial and anti-vax. It takes context that not everybody is exposed to to realise that friends and family who have always been good to you, may not actually be good people.
  I have a small amount of sympathy for him. His life and feelings were being used to push a far-right agenda that he's clearly not comfortable with, making him the latest target of abuse. He's got more in common with the LGBT community than he might want to admit.
  But my sympathy dries up quickly. He holds views that are deeply damaging to society and didn't seem to have a problem when it was other people on the receiving end.
  If he can learn from this and shake off his other shitty views, I'd have some respect for him but until then the enemy of my enemy isn't inherently my friend.
- qanon pedophile conspiracy lines?
  dude. jeffrey epstien had a private island where they raped children. that's not a conspiracy, that's what happened.
- He's just another rube being exploited by the right wing media cycle.
- I don't listen to country: can someone say what he said that's so controversial? As I understand he was making illusions to Jeffery Epstein who is a confirmed pedo
His politics amount to Jews running the world and queers being child molesters so don't expect much in the way of critical thinking.
The disgust makes sense when it's Rage Against the Machine and conservatives but homey apparently hasn't looked at mainstream country in the past 30+ years because it ain't "Folsom Prison Blues" anymore its "I Love America And My Ford Truck (Unless Ford Goes Woke)"
- You know how deliberately engineered, autotuned pop music and its popularity doesn't really represent real music? Same goes for "country". All of those carbon copy songs about ford trucks and beer in the bed of ma pickup chucklefucks doesn't represent the real music being made in and adjacent to that genre. Much like pop, it's music for idiots. It moves volume in America because of the size of that audience.
- I'm not the target audience, so maybe that explains why, but I don't hear any whistling in the song.
Why would you expect someone to understand a group of people just because they like a song they made? Art being misinterpreted, or interpreted in a way the artist never intended, is the oldest story in the book. Long story short it's not at all "odd that the singer doesn't understand his fanbase".
Maybe it's not his "fan base" that he doesn't understand, but rather than annoying 10% butt-hurts that always cause trouble.
I mean I don't have any fans and I don't understand because I'm actually pretty cool.
Everyone just keeps saying I haven't met the right group yet but like there aren't too many groups left.

Ignoring the whole welfare lyric for a moment, I think this experience ended up being a hard lesson for this young songwriter.

To borrow a line from Bluey - “…when you put something beautiful out into the world, it’s no longer yours, really.”

I would absolutely fucking love the song if not for that line. I swear I would.
- Who knows what his experiences are. Even working at a grocery store, you don't remember most of the people using EBT. You remember a lady buying only high end meat with the card and getting into an Escalade.
  I think fraud is just one of the costs of helping peeps, but I understand how frustrating it can be to have to watch your spending and witness that. Confirmation bias takes over and you don't remember the poor people buying staples.
People need to remember that this guy did not have a lot of success before this song. It's a breakout hit from an unknown artist

Everyone heard him when he said who he was.

This is just him saying that he wants to sell another single in the future.

This song is honestly amazing with Dale Gribble AI vocals. It feels like it was from a parallel universe where King Of The Hill never stopped making episodes.

https://youtu.be/JbJTbykAK1Q?si=9FnjofCl9GMMq_to

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The lyrics could have been written by an AI it's so generic.
- I disagree. I think it’s clever. I’m a hillbilly who doesn’t live far from this guy so I may have a little bias.
  I just wish like hell he hadn’t included that horrible line about poor folks. He’s off the mark about who his enemy is.
  I was too at one point. I was so burned out dealing with those people. Where I’m from that’s all you see. You have people who work every day or you have huge people riding around on mobility scooters with skinny half starved children begging for a bag of peanuts. When that is your experience day in and day out and you haven’t yet had the opportunity to learn why that is, you just get angry at what you see.
  I hope he comes to understand the source of those problems and directs his anger at the right people.
  He could end up being the protest singer that we need in Appalachia to offer a decent perspective.
  When I was younger I wrote an entire mini book on how much hatred I had for the junkies in my community. It would embarrass me right into my grave if I had to read it today. I ended up falling into the trap myself and then I realized it wasn’t a choice they were making. Once I realized that my people had been intentionally poisoned and lied to so some jackass wearing a suit worth more than our houses could grow his bank account, I was furious with myself for what I had believed earlier.
  I hope this dude gets some truth and brings more people around.
  Sorry if this is a jumbled mess. Trying to type it out at work and keep my train of thought is a terribly difficult thing to do.
Upon an honest look at this song i see nothing wrong with its lyrics
I feel fooled by an internet wave
https://youtu.be/JbJTbykAK1Q?si=ct8MNE11-Zzvw6Bm
- Are you being victimized by fat people on welfare?
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Ootl... Who is this red head of the woods and what did they do?

Tldr: some no name dude wrote a country song. One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients. Conservative hogs lose their mind and his song hits top charts. He comes out backpedaling and claiming we all "interpretted the lyrics wrong" and welfare recipients are victims not leeches. Now everyone is confused.
- Can't forget the part where his personal YouTube channel also has an extensive watch list ("videos to make your noggin' bigger" or something similar) full of full-on anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Such as Jews secretly orchestrating 9/11.
- Ohhh. This is the dude who performs the song my coworker was all but having orgasms over yesterday and was trying to make me listen to - "the lyrics are amazing, just listen to them!" She already thinks she's magnetic from a hepatitis vaccine, and this morning informed me that the moon landing was a hoax, so I think I made the right call in utterly ignoring her and her stupid song.
- The song title rich men north of Richmond is also likely a dog whistle for other crappy bigots like this idiot.
- One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients.
  There's no way he chose Richmond for any reason other than being the CSA's capital city.
- Ah okay I was confused why people were hating on this guy. Before I knew that it sounded like "The machine is wondering why rage against the machine hates them for liking their music again."
Just to be clear, this isn't the guy who made "try that in a small town" which was another meme of a song lately.

If I cared, it would be fun watching this guy pick his lane. But I don't.

Beau has a good breakdown here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3-Ch0y6ZvE

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I wish Beau was more concise, it's painful to hear him meander through a topic with no planning
After watching Beau's videos, I tracked down videos on OIiver Anthony's channel from before and after the song went viral.
tldr; Beau called it.
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I said most of what I wanna say yesterday

Great comment, thanks for linking it. Unfortunately it seems like the sides have been "set" and we have to hate him now or we're literally Nazis. Your phrase "wholesomely uneducated" seems a bit condescending but tbh I can't think of a better way to phrase it. I met 100 of him when I lived in TN. Genuinely good people who were victims of misinformation and ~~secularism~~ social insularism.
- Yeah, I mean I wanted to be nice because he is passionate and something tells me his heart is in the right place, even if that lyric is misguided af.
  I talked about this a lot yesterday.
  I've watched a few of his non music videos to see if I sniff it out and I don't catch a bad vibe from him beyond that lyric.
  I think the general issue with Conservatism as a modern ideology is that it only spreads through uneducated crowds. We can't blame people for the bad education they got.
  He talks about the pure joy he's getting out of people enjoying his content. He even deliberately tried to deliver a message of inclusivity to ward off the conservative crowd from making him their mascot.
  Getting overnight fame is hard and I hope he handles it well and in a way that enables him to share his talents for good.
  Edit: he seems genuine to me, idk.
  He didn't say these things to a million people. He said it to his cell phone camera in his back yard. It wasn't ironed out, nuanced, it was just kinda... Wholesomely uneducated.
  But the important thing is that overnight success is hard. The devil is tempting this kid left and right, no doubt. He is telling folks off for misappropriating his message, and saying no to big money.
  Hopefully this amount of public scrutiny cleans up his message and doesn't dull his passion. It's a delicate balance. Idk. It's a good song, and I'm a northern liberal metal head who kinda hates country.
- victims of misinformation and secularism.
  What's a victim of secularism? How can you be a victim of not bringing religion into a discussion?

I don't think he understands who is listening to him now.

It’s wild that people are so mad about the fudge rounds line. Poor people are often forced into situations where they eat unhealthy foods. Why should food aid programs help fund American obesity rather than tackle it? Is that not the same as declaring tomatoes a vegetable so we can keep serving pizza to to schoolkids?

It doesn't help fund obesity, it helps feed people.
People who live in a food desert and can only access bad food.
You don't ask the "keep people from starvation" fund to also be the "fix systemic class based wage structures" fund
Oddly I'm not bothered by that line so much. I'm more disappointed with the title and the chorus. Richmond, being the capital of Virginia was a border state of the Civil War. Yes technically Washington DC is very much north of Richmond, but I think the song resonates more with a certain crowd due to the former reason vs the latter.
The song could have been better IMO if it targeted LOCAL governments by state, instead of trying to blame Rich Men North of Richmond. As if Rich Men South of Richmond wasn't a thing...
- Also the line about “I wish they’d care more about miners than minors” is a right wing, qanon reference to Epstein’s victims. Basically saying that he wishes they’d protect coal country jobs over protecting kids from being sex trafficked.
  on NPR
  In other songs he’s basically flaking for the qanon nutters.
- i’m not buying it. Sure he could be a confederate apologist but if you are writing a song about some rich old dudes in DC screwing the rest of us over its some hard rhymes. When I heard the song he pronounced the word “rich men” and “richmond” nearly identically. I was like what does “rich men north of rich men” mean, then later I heard “richmond north of richmond”
  Looking at the lyrics he was complaining that we have people in the streets with no food to eat while there are obese people getting fat on welfare. Sounds like he thinks government is incompetent.
  I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
- I don't think Virginia was technically a border state in the civil war? MD. WV, and KY were southern states blanketing Virginia. When the government moved through Baltimore, didn't they have to point federal hill and Fort McHenry cannons at Baltimore to stop the city from rioting against the government army?
Deciding what food people get to eat with their food assistance money is disturbingly authoritarian.
- Deciding what food people get to buy would be a bad solution to that problem anyways
  Working to have healthy options be more affordable and available seems like it'd help and it doesn't seem disturbingly authoritarian
- Food assistance is already regulated. No hot food, no pet food, no vitamins, no beer or wine, etc
Are people mad or is media saying people are mad and then people are agreeing with media.
I often find now that media creates a bunch of controversy on behalf of artists or comedian's were no shits were given. But like a "man on the street" bit, when confronted by a view like "the song calls people fat" then people who never gave two shits might say this things like " that's kind of shitty" so it becomes a self fulfilling thing all to drum up sales of some new edgy thing. Songs good though. Been on my playlist on repeat
- I actually don't see a lot of it in the media. I do see a lot of it in terminally online and too-plugged-in places like Twitter, here, Reddit, Mastodon, and political YT.
- I have no idea if the media is saying people are mad, the only place I’ve seen angry comments is here on Lemmy. Fair point though, if it’s happening elsewhere it could be media controversy.
I'm bothered by it because he's just repeating Raegan. At least try to convince me you're a populist, come on.
The thing is, I think with just a tiny shift in perspective, that part of the song becomes about food deserts, and how social programs are often designed to keep people in the system, not help them get out of it.
It is mystifying. The WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) assistance program has nutrition requirements like only healthier foods and certain brands/ingredients allowed. Yet while it's OK to dictate to pregnant women and new mothers what they are permitted to eat on an assistance program, some people feel it is not all right for the other welfare programs. Always feels like we just csnnot have nutrition requirements for food programs if men use them.

His statement doesnt make sense. He needs to own up to what he made.

If you're interested in what this guy is actually saying, vs. what people say that he's saying, there are a pair of fascinating videos on his channel from before and after the song went viral.

A couple of thoughts I've had:

He is smart AF. This guy isn't a dumb bigot hopped up on MAGA propaganda. He may have partway fallen for some of it, but that's why they spend billions of dollars on propaganda: it works.
The pain and disillusionment he's making music about are real. It's stuff that's happening to him and his loved ones. He's not a rich, made-for-Nashville country music star.
He's definitely absorbed some conservative propaganda, but he also sees through a lot of their BS.
- He goes into the "wellfare" line a bit, and for him it's about the cycle of government dependence and how people feel trapped by some social programs. I think with a little more perspective he'd be singing about food deserts and how hard it is to eat fresh vegetables when your grocery store is a dollar tree.
- There was a line about "normalizing pedophilia" which makes me think he's fallen for some of the anti-lgbt+ propaganda from the GOP. I really hope that's not the case.
He definitely says the people on the GOP primary stage were who he was singing about in the song, not "populist saviors".
I think he's halfway to realizing that it's not really a culture war. It's a class war, and people like him are losing.

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Seems like a cool guy

Interesting to follow all the Oliver Anthony stuff.

Sabby Sabs on Oliver Anthony: Oliver Anthony ATTACKED By Partisan Politics (clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQZGPv4m6bc

The Jimmy Dore Show on Oliver Anthony: Working Class Anthem Attacked By Establishment As “QAnon!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77osCokywc

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Even if you give him full benefit of the doubt, the fact the right could adopt this as an anthem against his intentions shows how milquetoast the song is, and how he's failed to communicate the meaning he wants the song to have.

They adopted Fortunate Son too, and that one's obviously not for them
- This 100%
- As well as "Born in the USA"
- Fortunate Son is definitely anti-war in context but I'd say it suffers the same vagueness, the lyrics are more about solidarity with soldiers and against preferential treatment for politician's soldiers, which are moral causes often appealed to by the right. They've also had their own "complicated relationship" with displaying the confederate flag which also adds to this. Other anti-Vietnam war songs like "I Ain't Marching Anymore" are a lot more radical anti-war sentiments, one reason why Fortunate Son is so ubiquitous is because it is vague enough and allows people to impart meaning on it just enough.
  Another interesting song that toes this line is "The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down" which is a character piece of a confederate solder at the end of the civil war, with the chorus in major key it suggests an anti-war sentiment but people have also confused it for southern nostalgia.
  Should a song be direct or vague? If you want to communicate a specific message like Oliver Antony and get upset when it's misinterpreted then yes, in CCR and The Band's case it's about expressing an emotion or painting a scene. However so many of the classic working class songs like "Which Side Are you On" cannot be misunderstood because they directly pose the political question. One of Dylan's biggest criticisms from the left at the time was his vague lyrics, vs folk singers like Seeger and Ochs were directly addressing heavy political subjects in their lyrics.