Distress Music

What Does the Popularity of “Rich Men North of Richmond” Tell Us about State of our State?

A young man named Oliver Anthony, who lives off the grid in Virginia, is blowing up social media this week with a song he wrote entitled "Rich Men North of Richmond." You might want to give it a listen.

People far and wide are being deeply affected by this singer and the words of the song itself. What is he addressing in this song that people are responding to?

Here are the lyrics (salty language warning):

I've been selling my soul
Working all day
Overtime hours
For bullsh*t, pay
So I can sit out here, and waste my life away
Drag back home, and drown my troubles away

It's a d*mn shame
What the world's gotten to
For people like me, and people like you
Wish I could just wake up, and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Living in the new world
With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just want to have total control
Wanna know what you think
Wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
Cause your dollar ain't sh*t, and it's taxed to no end
Cause the rich men north of Richmond

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 nothing to eat
And the obese milking 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 putting themselves six feet in the ground
Cause all this d*mn country does is keep on kicking them down

Lord, it's a d*mn shame
What the world's gotten to
For people like me, and people like you
Wish I could just wake up, and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Living in the new world
With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just want to have total control
Wanna know what you think
Wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
Cause your dollar ain't sh*t, and it's taxed to no end
Cause the rich men north of Richmond

I've been selling my soul
Working all day
Overtime hours
For bullsh*t, pay

Devalued

First, he expresses the alienation he feels at working long, hard hours but being unable to reap meaningful financial rewards from his work. He associates this with being "an old soul" but living in the "new world." What is this "new world"? He doesn't say directly, but one noticeable phenomenon in our current moment is the premium being placed on the virtual, while the physical is increasingly commoditized.

A primary value that men bring to the job market, especially when they are young, is physical strength and endurance. But in an environment where those attributes are economically devalued, young men may be using themselves up for no appreciable gains. I suspect this is one of the ideas behind these lyrics that is touching a sore spot for many.

I reflected on an aspect of this recently in a blog post about the rise of disembodiment and virtual participation in the Christian world. N.S. Lyons recently touched on this more broadly in a monumental blog post he wrote on the rise of the managerial class. One aspect, he says, of this rising technocratic tyranny is the embrace of "dematerialization" (i.e. a preference for the digital and virtual over the physical). Here's how Lyons describes dematerialization:

The belief, or more often the instinct, that abstract and virtual things are better than physical things, because the less tied to the messy physical world humans and their activities are, the more liberated and capable of pure intellectual rationality and uninhibited morality they will become. Practically, dematerialization, such as through digitalization or financialization, is a potent solvent that can help burn away the repressive barriers created by attachments to the particularities of place and people, replacing them with the fluidity and universality of the cosmopolitan. Dematerialization makes property more easily tradable, and can more effectively produce homogenization and fulfill desires at scale. Indeed in theory dematerialization could allow almost everything to take on and be managed at vastly greater, even infinite, mass and scale, holding out the hope of total efficiency: a state of pure frictionlessness, in which change (progress) will be effortless and limitless. Finally, dematerialization also most broadly represents an ideological belief that it is the world that should conform to abstract theory, not theory that must conform to the world.

Anthony's first observation, then, is that the "new world" is structured in such a way that young men with strong backs find it hard to prosper by using their traditionally masculine attributes of strength and endurance.

He goes on to observe that the political class is obsessively controlling and embraces policies that actively contribute to the challenges a young man faces in trying to get ahead:

"Your dollar ain't sh*t and it's taxed to no end"

He has noticed that inflation and taxes are reducing the benefits a young man like him might otherwise receive from his hard work. And he even intuits that the taxes he is burdened with are not being put to good use.

"Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds."

He observes that the political class has entirely misplaced priorities.

"I wish politicians would look out for miners, and not just minors on an island somewhere."

Mr. Anthony apparently had his acid pen out when he wrote that last line. He accuses the political class of being sexually depraved (i.e. his allusion to Epstein's private island) and neglecting the first and primary obligation of government—protecting upright citizens. In fact, specifically where coal miners are concerned, the government is actively trying to make their lives worse by intentionally devaluing their work and thus, ultimately, their ability to prosper.

Disaffected

Anthony's song expresses a young man's deep disaffection and alienation from a world which seems to be rigged against a natural desire to get ahead in physical rather than virtual ways. He places a lot of the blame on the misplaced, controlling priorities of the political class – rich men north of Richmond.

It may be impossible to know just why this song has blown up the internet. But it has definitely touched a hot button for, literally, millions of people. There is something going on here, something simmering in the minds of millions that this young man has somehow given voice to.

I myself have been in dialog with numerous young men who are experiencing the same structural obstacles that Oliver Anthony has put into words. These young men exit the public education system having spent their entire childhood and adolescent confined in classrooms, and they emerge with no actual economic viability. This is—there’s no other way to say it—a kind of abuse. When they leave the public educational system, they are thus faced with either years of additional education and economic dependency, or they must take on unskilled work, the pay for which is inadequate to their actual economic needs. "Overtime hours, for bullsh*t pay."

A Voice for Millions

These young men are usually well aware of the inadequacy of their opportunity, but they often don't have an explanation for their plight. They more often express their bewilderment than their anger. What Anthony seems to have done with his song is to express some unarticulated thoughts and feelings that have been simmering out there in the minds of many. By proposing an explanation for some of the important factors contributing to their difficult circumstances, he appears to have given vent to something that has percolated beneath the surface, unexpressed but keenly felt.

Whatever is going on here, there's no denying that this is a protest song that is somehow touching a nerve with millions. We should probably be paying attention.

Coda: Mr. Anthony held his first concert, since all this blew up, at a farmer's market. He kicked off his concert in a very interesting way: