Oliver Anthony burst onto the scene a few weeks ago with his powerful, plaintive anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond.” Anthony had been making music for a while, but it was that deceptively simple song — just a man with a powerful voice (and an awesome beard) and his dobro singing about the plight of the working class — that resonated with Americans.
Conservatives in particular latched on to “Rich Men North of Richmond” and made it go viral. The song has catapulted Anthony to stardom with dizzying speed, and the song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, which is unusual these days for an artist making real music with real instruments.
There’s an obvious populism that rings through “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and it exemplifies one of the common themes of what we sometimes call “folk music.” There are forces out to get the working man, who is just trying to put food on the table and support his family.
Because Joe Biden is the low-hanging fruit of today’s politics and because his policies have hurt working families, conservatives thought that “Rich Men North of Richmond” was an explicitly conservative message and that Anthony might just be “one of us.” The by-product of all of that is that the left tried to downplay Anthony’s message and denigrate his character.
Anthony responded with a YouTube video saying that the song isn’t necessarily about Biden and that Republicans need to realize that Anthony’s barbs are aimed at them as well. This must have led to a backlash of its own, because the singer-songwriter addressed the new controversy in an Instagram post:
This will be my last post about politics on social media. I apologize for beating a dead horse, but I just need to address this quote in my video earlier, since it’s been misquoted / misinterpreted this evening. Corporate news (big surprise) is now trying to twist me into being a Biden supporter. 🤣
“That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden” is referencing DeSantis’ response to my song. He talks about needing to get Joe Biden out, as if that would automatically solve all the problems. Biden is a big part of the issue, but it runs much deeper.
Rich Men North of Richmond is about corporate owned DC politicians on both sides. Though Biden’s most certainly a problem, the lyrics aren’t exclusively knocking Biden, it’s bigger and broader than that. It’s knocking the system collectively.
Including the corporate owned conservative polticans that were on stage that night.
🙂 Goodnight everyone. Thanks again.
There you go. “Rich Men North of Richmond” isn’t a conservative anthem or (to use the language the left might want to use) a “right-wing screed.” It’s also not a left-wing populist anthem as The Hill might have wanted it to be when it published an article about Anthony’s post-GOP debate video confession. It’s a song about how Washington has let everybody down — and everyone in D.C. is to blame.
Related: Oliver Anthony Does It Again, This Time With ‘I Want To Go Home’
There are some lessons we can take away from all of this. The first one is that, just because someone says or writes something that resonates with us doesn’t mean that he or she is “one of us.” How many times have conservatives fallen for a young influencer who says something conservative and turned him or her into a conservative celebrity, only to have it backfire? I’m not saying that Oliver Anthony is going to be the next version of that phenomenon, but I also don’t think we should claim him as a conservative superstar.
I don’t know Anthony’s politics, and I don’t want to. He makes good music that deserves an audience, and I wish him responsible success if this is the career path he chooses. But I’m not going to make him a celebrity of the right, and you shouldn’t either.
The next takeaway from this is that we don’t need to conflate populism with conservatism. Populism has taken plenty of different forms over the years. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it took on a decidedly left-wing slant — even embracing some forms of socialism — while since the rise of Donald Trump, populism has made its home within the GOP. But we can’t guarantee that it’ll always be “ours,” so we need to take populism with a grain of salt.
Finally, we need to get our own house in order. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
It’s easy for us to point fingers at Joe Biden and the Democrats, and rightly so. We need to defeat him, get him out of office, and replace him with someone who will take care of more than the left and its hangers-on. But we also need to reform the party from within and return to the roots of small government, liberty, and opportunity for everyone. I think we can do that while we’re taking on the powerful left.
When all is said and done, I love “Rich Men North of Richmond” and Anthony’s other songs. He has a message that people need to hear, and from my perspective as a music guy, his raw, heartfelt sound is refreshing and gives me hope for more good music from independent artists. At the same time, I’m also not going to pretend like he’s the next big GOP celebrity, and you shouldn’t either. Let’s just let Oliver Anthony be Oliver Anthony and make the music he wants to make.
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