If you’ve missed the whole out-of-nowhere Oliver Anthony story, you may be the only one.
An obscure YouTube channel put this Virginia everyman’s bluegrass-ish anthem on its channel a couple of weeks ago and it soon became the most downloaded song in the world.
In fact, Anthony owned almost half of the top 14 most downloaded songs on iTunes for a brief period last week.
But it’s his musical rant against the system called “Rich Men North of Richmond” that prompted what seems like everyone in America to pull up the song on their phones.
You can read the lyrics here, but know there is a bit of profanity.
On one hand, it rings of a million other “working man” songs. If you’re a writer and want clicks, crack on the government and the welfare state. If you’re a singer and want hits, do the same.
The difference is that the down-on-his-luck Anthony is much more believable than the rich country star who tries to sing about the plight of the working man. You can tell that he is singing from a genuine place rather than trying to find a hit.
According to Anthony (his real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford) he’s a high school dropout who lives in a 27-foot camper on some land he bought a few years ago. He’s worked in outside sales for almost a decade and bounced around a few low-paying jobs before then. He said he’s had mental health issues and turned to alcohol to try to cope.
Anthony sees himself as the quintessential target of a system that rewards lawbreakers and non-producers and crushes the average citizen.
He looks like the guy you would like to root on.
And I do. I want to see him succeed, pay off the land and have peace that he hasn’t appeared to have had in a while.
I’m just not ready to embrace the whole message.
Are there threads of truth throughout his song? Yes. Do elitist politicians really serve the hardest working people in the country? No. Are lazy people who do not want to work often rewarded for … well … not working? Yes.
So when I heard the song and read the lyrics, I found myself agreeing with a lot of what was said, but still far from raising my fist in solidarity.
Why? There is a victim mentality that creeps from this song and this is far from how I want to be identified.
A friend asked me what I thought just a couple of days after the song went viral. I said it certainly struck a chord but I didn’t want the evangelical Christian community to make this man their next hero.
Too late. This is nothing Anthony asked for, but since he began his first live performance after his newfound fame by reading from the Bible, a swath of the evangelical community has made Anthony a symbol.
Over and over again, the New Testament teaches us how to live in spite of our uncontrollable circumstances. It tells us that sin has stained the world and the Christian reflects the image of God most when it lives above the fray. It tells us this is not our home and we were made for eternity.
I’m not against Christian political activism and I’m not against the occasional vent over unfairness. But if we are truly called to be molded into the image of Christ through a process called sanctification, then we must find that model through (a) a yielding to the Holy Spirit and (b) the life of Christ as written in the New Testament and the lives of those that followed Him.
And when we do that, we see Christ and his followers identified by other things.
Christians don’t attract the lost when they become most known for wailing about their plight. And that’s where so many evangelicals are now. It’s all they want to talk about. It’s hard to hear pastors preach about the “victorious” Christian life and then hear so many Christians wallow in angry defeatist rhetoric.
So I’m hoping Oliver Anthony does well. I’ll be rooting for him. I’m just not going to jump on the woe-is-me bandwagon.
You perfectly articulated what I have felt but have been unable to put words to since I heard the song. Yes, he does make some valid points but I can't embrace the victims mentality. It's unfortunate that so many of my evangelical brothers have embraced this song as some sort of anthem. As has been the case since the garden, sin is the real problem.
Perfect Lance. Anthony said some things I was thinking and you said the rest.