Even if this entire folk-country style isn’t your jam, this track has been fairly unavoidable, proper?
Rich Men North of Richmond is getting into its second week on the prime of the Billboard Hot 100. It’s racked up 46 million views in simply two weeks on YouTube. It’s a bona fide hit that’s come out of nowhere.
Part of that success is the conservative bump. Pundits instantly grabbed onto the track as an “anti-woke” anthem, with its traces that sound acquainted to their listeners, like “it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to” and complaints about “the obese milkin’ welfare” and being “taxed to no end.” In case you haven’t heard it but…
Due to assumptions made in regards to the politics of the track, it was performed throughout the first Republican Presidential Debate final week. That prompted singer Oliver Anthony to specific his annoyance in a video over the weekend. Why? As far as he’s involved the track is NOT conservative. He lamented amid the track’s wholly surprising success:
“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up into this. It’s aggravating seeing people in conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them. It’s aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we’re buddies and act like we’re fighting the same struggle here, like that we’re trying to present the same message.”
One wants however to hear a bit of nearer to the lyrics, about “workin’ all day overtime hours for bulls**t pay” to see the distinction between him and the wealthy pundits and pols celebrating the monitor. Though we guess sufficient wealthy folks through the years have been pretending to be males of the folks or heroes of the working class that we will perceive how they’d get confused.
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But Oliver doesn’t need the track to be considered political, a minimum of not part of the world of politics because it stands. He says it’s in regards to the complaints actual folks have about politicians — and that DEFINITELY consists of all these politicians within the GOP! On seeing his track performed on the debate, he mused:
“It was funny seeing my song at the presidential debate. ‘Cause it’s like, I wrote that song about those people. So for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up.”
Apparently the dearth of self-awareness meant they’d no thought they had been even being lambasted by the lyrics.
The track isn’t liberal both, clearly — he talked about seeing pundits on the left “trying to discredit” him, “I guess in retaliation” to the conservative embrace. But he wished to clarify it wasn’t a commentary on Joe Biden‘s presidency or another rattling factor these conservatives try to say:
“That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden, you know? It’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song is written about the people on that stage, and a lot more too. Not just them, but definitely them.”
Ha! As to his precise politics, he says he doesn’t help both aspect, and it’s extra sophisticated than left or proper:
“It’s hard to get a message out about your political ideology or your belief about the world in three minutes and some change but I do hate to see that song being weaponized.”
Seems to us that from the track he’s singing about folks struggling whereas wealthy people in Washington, DC are enriching themselves at their expense. And that is one thing everybody ought to be capable to get behind. We additionally suppose it’s fairly humorous Republicans assumed it wouldn’t be about them — as if their fearless chief Donald Trump isn’t the epitome of all the things incorrect with politics. As if he wasn’t born wealthy and didn’t use politics to counterpoint himself and his household, by no means even trying to assist the American folks alongside the way in which.
Well, anyway. Like the track or not, you must respect the integrity of the singer — who’s taking that conservative bump and telling these pols and pundits to shove it.
You can see Oliver’s full remarks in regards to the 2:10 mark (beneath):
[Image via Oliver Anthony/WGN News/YouTube.]