Oliver Anthony, the songwriter behind the viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” didn’t even finish high school. But his song is the most intelligent political commentary of the year.
You don’t need a college degree to understand what’s happening in our country.
Oliver Anthony, the songwriter behind the viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” didn’t even finish high school.
But his song is the most intelligent political commentary of the year.
That’s because there are two parts to it, though most critics and many admirers have only picked up on one.
The song isn’t simply a class-war complaint — the trouble with the rich men north of Richmond isn’t that they’re rich, it’s that “they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do.”
Anthony, real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford, is a throwback to the folk libertarianism that gave us the American Revolution.
There’s a social and spiritual level to the song beyond its obvious economics.
Maybe that’s easy to miss because Anthony’s biography sounds like something Hollywood would dream up for a working-class troubadour.
He lives in a trailer in Farmville, Va.
He cracked his skull working in a North Carolina paper mill, spent six months unemployed, plunged into depression and tried to drown his suffering in alcohol.
And he can really sing: “Rich Men North of Richmond” has poignant lyrics, but its appeal lies as much in the simple catchiness of its sound, and Anthony’s voice puts auto-tuned pop stars to shame.
It would make a great movie, but Anthony’s life shouldn’t be reduced to a caricature, and neither should the message of his song.
