“You gotta hear this song” – a phrase that seems to be happening less and less these days for people like me who grew up in the 90s when every week you heard someone say it at least once. It becomes even more disjointed when you reach your late 40s and you take the advice of a twenty-something and do plug in for a moment to hear a young artist sing a song so predictable and canned that you have to hold back the critical “yeah I heard this same song over the last ten years by 10 other artists” so you don’t kill even the smallest joy that this kid might have.
But every so often a tune comes along that breaks the mold. Crushes the formula. Sends songwriters in LA, New York, and Nashville scrambling to replicate the idea to rake the cash in.
“Beware all those angels with their wings glued on.”
That exact moment of a zeitgeist changing musical bomb hit recently when Oliver Anthony, an unknown singer / songwriter from Virginia, released a jewel of emotional, raw, sad, and empowering energy that it has (to date) racked up a shocking 24M views (and counting) on YouTube and become the #1 song on Apple Music – crushing even the most darling of darlings Ms. Swift.
And why is it so popular? Because he is talking to that mass of Americans who are not on cable news. The Americans who the Times, Post, and Tribune blatantly do not cater to even after they brand themselves as the voices of the nation. They are the working class, blue collar, taxpayer republic that funds the northeast and DC so the politicians they elect can make more cash in their 2-6 year terms than their constituents make in life times. Generational lifetimes.
They are the same Americans that are robbed daily of simple recreation and basic joys by robber barons working in conjunction with DC on Wall Street where the working man’s salary is traded on slips of digital paper to make a fraction of a percentage to fund that 401k built off of an Ivy League BA.
That is who Mr. Oliver is talking to. That is who he is singing for. And WE are listening.
The issue that has arisen in response to the song focuses on his lyrical choice – a focus from the left as they once again try to downplay the issues of a disappearing and struggling middle class work force:
But things start to feel a little less empathetic when Anthony starts complaining about “the obese milking welfare”, reasoning that “if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds”. We can all agree that politicians have caused many of America’s problems; it’s harder to argue that our country is being destroyed by short, overweight chocolate enthusiasts. – “Rich Men North of Richmond Punches Down…” Matthew Cantor
One of the best ways to rhetorically diminish a statement that you don’t like is obviously to take the thing out of context and create a pathos that turns the real emotional appeal of the moment into the opposite of its meaning. For context, here is the full verse from Anthony:
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare.
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down.
So, does he talk about the obese? Absolutely. Does he blame THEM for the ills of the country. No. In context of the verse, as he wrote it, he is blaming the deficiencies of the system. Homeless people on the street starving yet in the same system the Welfare state has made another problem in America worse than better. In the full verse what we see is the hypocritical nature of the political elite in this country as they focus on one group at the detriment of others. Hence why the final line about young men in the country is so powerful as well – the young male population in this country is losing and being left behind and in response they’re killing themselves at a higher rate than any other group in our nation.
And there are a lot of left leaning outlets that have come after the song in a campaign that seems to be failing:
And so many more. Just Google the song and hit the news tab.
What fascinates me is the continued brushing off of the issues Oliver and others are screaming about. If it isn’t a progressive left issue, it is immediately downgraded and labeled right wing and racist / homophobic / transphobic / fat-phobic, etc. The fact that the middle can’t speak out without being labeled anything but reasonable should be a warning sign for all. The vast majority of people in our country don’t care about pronouns, bathrooms, systemic anything, urban politics, identity politics, kneeling for an anthem, antiracists, equity and inclusion, or any of the other left-wing talking points or causes. What most of America does care about is their hourly wage, their debt, if they will have food to feed their family with, if they’ll be able to pay their rent or mortgage this month (or last month’s), and if they’ll be able to get gas to get to work so they can pay their electric bill. Those are the real concerns of the average American. And those are the concerns Anthony is touching on. The system is broken and we have a song that puts a voice to millions of people who are tired of the Democrats AND Republicans who are too busy lining their pockets to realize that if they don’t fix this mess they BOTH created over decades of systemic deconstruction of the American middle class, they too will soon be out of a job.
There is the old adage that those who refuse to study history will be doomed to repeat it. I have seen many articles attempting to correlate what we are seeing now to both the Gilded Age and to the antebellum preceding the Civil War. I think the best place to look is not in our past but instead we should start looking at the years preceding the French Revolution. All we are lacking is a juggernaut Robespierre to come in and save the day with a guillotine and a piece of paper declaring the rights of man (and don’t worry – Trump ain’t that guy).
The pendulum appears to be swinging back – are we ready for where it settles?