Before August, not too many people had heard of Oliver Anthony but then one iconic performance of his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” sent his star into the stratosphere.
Anthony went from having a few hundred followers on Spotify to millions in a matter of weeks and was being talked about everywhere from Fox News to even the first Republican presidential debate. The debate moderators asked why the song about the obese, taxation and the wealthy had struck a chord with so many Americans.
“It was funny seeing it at the presidential debate because it’s like, I wrote that song about those people, you know? So, for them to have to sit there and listen to that, it cracks me up,” Anthony said in a YouTube video days after the debate.
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Standing up for the every man and working class is a common theme in Anthony’s catalogue of about 15 songs, which cover topics ranging from country life, cars to dogs and occasionally, even cocaine.
Newsweek contacted Anthony by email for comment.
His next most famous song, “Ain’t Got A Dollar,” which also happens to be his X, formerly Twitter, handle speaks on his comfort of living on his farm despite having no money.
“Cause I ain’t gotta dollar / But I don’t need a dime,” Anthony sings.
“Well the rain could be pouring / Or the sun shining down.
“Long as my ole truck still fires on up / And there’s crops growing in the ground.”
The country music star is also no stranger to singing about darker days and how without his “dog and the good Lord / They’d have me strung up in the psych ward,” which is a line from the song, “I Want To Go Home.”
On that track, Anthony laments the world going downhill where “people have lost their way” and “nobody’s prayin’ no more.”
That theme of despair continues in “Doggonit” where he takes aim at hipsters “eating bugs because they won’t eat bacon,” people’s obsession with smartphones and also how the poor are struggling while the “rich keep thriving.”
But the theme of “Doggonit” is similar to “Rich Men North of Richmond,” where Anthony complains about politicians on both sides of the aisle who he claims are “just full of c***.”
“I’ve never seen a good city slicking, bureaucrat,” he croons.
Another of his more serious songs includes “Cobwebs and Cocaine” which he describes as the only thing left in his brain.
He sings on that song about shoveling coal on a midnight train “headed straight, toward the depths, of hell,” where his wife would rather die than keep living with him and his dog ran away thanks to the depressing environment in which it was living.
Anthony clearly loves his home in Farmville, Virginia, and regularly plays homage to his state.
“I’ve been pickin’ on the same back porch since/I was just a boy with a dream… Nobody singing songs about Virginia/But sweet Virginia’s always a singing to me,” he sings in the song “Virginia.”
“Lordy, I’ll tell the youngins when I grow old / What they all told me.
“Son, they don’t never sing songs about Virginia / But Virginia’s, she’s always a singing to me.”
Anthony also shows he’s a softie at heart in the song “90 Some Chevy” where he sings about his wife.
“That old darlin’ of mine is like a 90-some Chevy / She rides just right when you turn her on,” the lyrics go.
“The only thing sounds better than that old 350 / Is when she’s runnin’ up to kiss me when I get home.”
The themes that run through Anthony’s music and have divided people from all sides of the political spectrum.
“It’s not just the Left that’s misunderstanding Oliver Anthony’s song. The Right has been all too eager to act like he is one of them, using the song’s lyrics as the opening question for the Republican primary presidential debate. Republican politicians have celebrated the song as though they aren’t the exact target of its ire,” Noah Khrachvik wrote for Newsweek.
“What Oliver Anthony’s success reveals is how alienated working-class people are from both parties, both political ideologies in this country, and how united they are in their opposition to the contempt of elites on both sides.”
Khrachvik, who is the co-director of the Midwestern Marxist Institute, argued the time for political parties driving a wedge between the common people was over.
“A new era’s coming: an era where people are wise to that kind of thing. An era where we see we have a whole lot more in common with the people working right next to us than we do with the rich men north of Richmond,” he wrote.
But others have taken offence to some of Anthony’s lyrics arguing “Rich Men North of Richmond,” invokes “racist tropes of welfare queens and ultimately stigmatize people with obesity,” Simar Bajaj and Fatima Cody Stanford previously told Newsweek.
Bajaj is a Harvard University student and research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine. Cody Stanford is an associate professor of Medicine and Pediatrics who practices and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School as one of the first fellowship-trained obesity medicine physicians worldwide.
“Indeed, the idea of ‘the obese milking welfare’ harkens back to Reagan-era fears of Black hustlers abusing government benefits,” they wrote.
“It’s true that obesity rates are higher among Hispanic and Black adults at 46 to 50 percent versus the national average of 42 percent, but these disparities reflect systemic racism, not gluttony and a lack of self-discipline, as Anthony suggests.
“For instance, five categories of processed foods make up 75 percent of Spanish-language and Black-targeted TV ad spending, and low-income neighborhoods are essentially food swamps, filled with corner stores and fast food restaurants.”
The pair added that “the two most common forms of bias are racism, followed closely by weight bias,” in the U.S. and are “firmly intertwined, each feeding and building off the other.”
“While our society has gradually recognized that racism must be addressed as a systemic issue, obesity is still seen as an individual problem,” they wrote.
“Yes, diet and exercise can help some people lose weight. However, the complexity of this disease—and the deck being stacked against minority communities—emphasizes the need for structural change and a more compassionate discourse. Obesity is a public health crisis, not a moral one.”