Oliver Anthony, who skyrocketed to fame with his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” — which made him the first performer to hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart without any prior charting history — offered his own solution to the crisis of America seemingly coming apart at the seams.
Anthony, a farm worker in Farmville, Virginia, released his hit song on YouTube roughly two weeks ago. He was asked by The Free Press what he wanted to achieve for Americans with his song.
“What I want out of this for the general public?” he repeated. “It’s for people, I guess for one, to stop relying on somewhere, on someone 150 or 500 miles away from them to solve their problems for them. Like nobody in Washington, D.C., no one in the federal government is coming to save us.”
“The people that are going to save us is each other, local relationships,” he declared. “Even families are torn apart. Like I made an example in one post about — and I’ve seen this in my old household at times — where you’ll have a whole family under the same roof and instead of them spending time with each other and caring about each other, every one of them’s sitting there just looking at their own piece of technology, like completely self-absorbed in that and not in each other.”
“That’s the real problem,” he said decisively. “We are very disconnected from each other just on a community level.”
The Free Press’s @rupasubramanya with the man of the moment, @AintGottaDollar. Story coming soon. pic.twitter.com/AUO37ZeRC4
— The Free Press (@TheFP) August 24, 2023
Anthony has also stated, “The universal thing I see is no matter how much effort they put into whatever it is they’re doing, they can’t quite get ahead because the dollar’s not worth enough, they are being over-taxed. I want to be a voice for those people. And not just them, but humans in general. … As long as you’re above the dirt, you’ve got a fightin’ chance.”
He wrote on Facebook:
There’s nothing special about me. I’m not a good musician, I’m not a very good person. I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it. I am sad to see the world in the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with each other. I have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the greatest country on Earth is quickly fading away.
That being said, I HATE the way the Internet has divided all of us. The Internet is a parasite, that infects the minds of humans and has their way with them. Hours wasted, goals forgotten, loved ones sitting in houses with each other distracted all day by technology made by the hands of other poor souls in sweat shops in a foreign land.
When is enough, enough? When are we going to fight for what is right again? MILLIONS have died protecting the liberties we have. Freedom of speech is such a precious gift. Never in world history has the world had the freedom it currently does. Don’t let them take it away from you.
Just like those once wandering in the desert, we have lost our way from God and have let false idols distract us and divide us. It’s a damn shame.