Even if this whole country genre isn’t your thing, this song has been pretty irresistible, right?
Rich people north of Richmond enters its second week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It has amassed 46 million views in just two weeks YouTube. It’s a bona fide hit that came out of nowhere.
Part of that success is the conservative bump. Pundits immediately seized on the song as an “anti-woke” anthem, with lines familiar to their audience, such as “it’s a shame what the world has come to” and complaints about “the privilege of fat milk ” and being “ fully taxed.” In case you haven’t heard it yet…
Because of assumptions made about the song’s politics, it was played at the first Republican Presidential Debate last week. That inspired the singer Oliver Anthony to express his frustration in a video over the weekend. Why? As far as he is concerned the song is NOT conservative. He lamented amid the song’s completely unexpected success:
“The only thing that bothered me was to see people bring politics into this. It’s horrible to see people in conservative news trying to identify with me as if I’m one of them. It’s sad to see some musicians and politicians act like we’re friends and act like we’re fighting the same fight here, so we’re trying to present the same message.”
One only has to listen a little closer to the words, about “working” extra hours all day for bulls**t pay” to see the difference between him and the rich pundits and pols who ‘ to see the marking of the way. Although we believe that plenty of rich people over the years have pretended to be men of the people or heroes of the working class that we can understand how they would get confused.
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But Oliver does not want the song to be considered political, at least not part of the world of politics as it is. He says it’s about the complaints real people have about politicians – and certainly includes all those politicians in the GOP! When he saw his song played at the debate, he thought:
“It was funny to see my song at the presidential debate. ‘Cause it’s like, I wrote that song about those people. So if they have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks them up.”
Apparently their lack of self-awareness meant they had no idea they were even getting the upper hand with the words.
The song isn’t liberal either, obviously – he commented on seeing pundits on the left “trying to discredit, I guess in retaliation” to the conservative outfit . But he wanted to make it clear that it was not a statement Joe Bidenpresident or whatever other damn thing these conservatives are trying to say:
“That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden, you know? He is much bigger than Joe Biden. That song is written about the people on that stage, and a lot more too. Not only them, but definitely them.”
Ha! Regarding his own politics, he says that he does not support either side, and that it is more complicated than left or right:
“It’s hard to get a message out about your political ideology or your beliefs about the world in three minutes and a bit of change but I’d hate to see that song weaponised.”
It seems to us from the song he sings about people who are struggling while the rich in Washington, DC are enriching themselves at their expense. And that Yes something everyone should be able to get behind. We also think it’s pretty funny Republicans assume it wouldn’t be about them – as if they have a fearless leader Donald Trump is not a true example of everything wrong with politics. As if he wasn’t born rich and didn’t use politics to enrich himself and his family, not even trying to help the American people along the way.
Well, anyway. Like the song or not, you have to respect the integrity of the singer – who takes that conservative nugget and asks those pols and pundits to move it.
You can see Oliver’s full comments at the 2:10 mark (below):
[Image via Oliver Anthony/WGN News/YouTube.]
