(HYPEBOT) – Oliver Anthony, the singer and songwriter of the breakout hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” rejected Republicans and conservative media who “identify with me like I’m one of them” and criticized the left for mischaracterizing his message.
“I’m gonna write, produce, and distribute authentic music that represents people and not politics,” Anthony said in a video released on Friday.
“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this,” he said. “It’s aggravating seeing people on 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 we’re trying to present the same message.”
The song was used during the Republican debate: “I wrote that song about those people. So for [the candidates] to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song was written about the people on that stage — and a lot more, not just them, but definitely them.”
As for the left’s criticism of the song’s lyric about the “obese milking welfare” by using tax money to buy “Fudge Rounds,” Anthony says he wrote it in response to an article he read about the percentage of welfare money spent on snack food and soda.
“If we can fuel a proxy war in a foreign land, but we can’t take care of our own, that’s all the song is trying to say,” said Anthony. “That the government takes people who are needy and dependent and makes them needy and dependent.”
The video is a must-watch if you want to understand the song.
Here is his first intro video, posted last week.
The song.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.
