The singer-songwriter chargeable for the sudden summer season hit Rich Men North Of Richmond launched a video assertion on Friday that lamented the best way that it has been “weaponized” by political figures, together with the best way that GOP candidates addressed it at Wednesday evening’s presidential debate.
“It was funny seeing it at the presidential debate, because it’s like I wrote that song about those people. So for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up,” stated the singer-songwriter, Oliver Anthony. “It was funny kind of seeing the response to it.”
The music was the subject of the primary query on the debate, with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum noting that it speaks “of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country. Washington DC is about 100 miles north of Richmond.” The music was primarily a leaping off level for the candidates to ship introductory messages, together with assaults on President Joe Biden.
But in his assertion, Anthony stated that the music “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 too, not just them, but definitely them.”
He added, “I do hate seeing that song being weaponized, like I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation. That s–t’s got to stop.”
Anthony denied that the music was anti-poor. Critics on the left have keyed in to one of many lyrics, Lord, we acquired people on the street, ain’t acquired nothin’ to eat. And the overweight milkin’ welfare. Well, God, for those who’re 5-foot-3 and also you’re 300 kilos. Taxes ought to not pay on your luggage of fudge rounds.
Anthony stated, “If you listen to my other music, it’s obvious that all of my songs that reference class defend the poor.” He stated that “there may some people who misunderstood my words” within the music.
“I’ve got to be clear that my message, like with any of my songs, it references the inefficiencies of the government because of the politicians within it that are engulfed in bribes and extortion,” he stated. The welfare reference, he stated, “references a news article I read earlier this summer that adolescent kids in Richmond are missing meals over the summer because their parents can’t afford to feed them and they are not in school for cafeteria lunch. And meanwhile, I think like 30 to 40% of the food bought with welfare or EDT money is in a classification of like snack food and soda…And that’s not the fault of those people. Welfare only makes up a small percentage of our budget. If we can fuel a proxy war in a foreign land, but we can’t take care of our own. That is all the song is trying to say. It’s just saying that the government takes people who are needy and dependent and makes them needy and dependent.”
Anthony’s music is at the moment No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up into this,” he stated within the video. “…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 are buddies and act like we are fighting the same struggle, like we are trying to present the same message.”
He stated later within the video that the music has drawn “such a positive response from such a diverse group of people, and I think that terrifies the people that I sing about in that song. And they have done everything they can in the last two weeks to make me look like a fool, to spin my words, to try and stick me in a political bucket. And they can keep trying, but I am just going to keep writing.”
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