Rich Men North of Richmond

I'm very late to this party, but I finally heard “Rich Men North of Richmond” today. Then I played it again. And again. And again. And again.

From a modern-day production viewpoint, it's absurd that anyone even knows this song exists: A sweaty, overweight, bearded ginger bitching about his problems in the middle of some forest next to his hillbilly deer stand with his dogs. This is the song that broke the internet in 2023? Really?

Yes. This is the song that broke the internet, and I'm so glad that it did.

From the very first chord, you know that Oliver Anthony is the real thing. He's not a hipster. He's not a pretender. That vibrato in his voice isn't autotune - it's a tremor coming from vocal chords raw from a lifetime of screaming and crying with no-one to hear.

Politics aside, this song is a breath of fresh air because it's a rare glimpse of true, emotionally-vulnerable art in a world oversaturated with manufactured bullshit. Even if you fundamentally disagree with the singer's politics, it's hard to deny that the song is meaningful because it is raw, it is genuine, and it defies conventional common sense about what a successful song should be.

But the song cannot be examined outside of its politics. Agree with the politics or not, this is without a doubt, the greatest American protest anthem that we have heard since probably the Vietnam War. Just as during that war, conservatives were not fans of hippie protest music, they could not deny its influence on the culture. And so today, our culture must contend with Oliver Anthony and his politics.

So that's what I'm going to do right now - listen to the lyrics, and say my peace. Maybe you'll agree. Maybe you won't. That's ok. I love you anyway.

"I've been selling my soul working all day

Overtime hours for bullshit pay

So I can sit out here and waste my life away

Drag back home and drown my troubles away"

A few days ago, I posted on Facebook about how I stayed up for about 21 hours working to help a few folks out in criminal Court. The praise I got for that post was incredible. A hundred likes, a bunch of lovely responses from friends telling me how great I am.

But why... why the hell are we celebrating this?

Why is this the reaction to a 40-year-old man who is giving away the best years of his life to try to make the tiniest difference in the world? I don't have a house. I don't have a wife. I don't have kids. I don't have a dog. My existence is literally subsistence-level, despite the fact that I've done everything right, and I am far more blessed than most people.

I am a criminal defense lawyer. I do not have a blue-collar job like most of Oliver Anthony's target audience, but it's a tough, emotionally-draining rollercoaster, where even when I am at my most successful, I'm only able to restore the rights of people who should not have had them taken in the first place. My best day in court doesn't end in my clients gaining something, or benefitting in some way. My best day is just seeing an innocent person getting a second chance at a normal life.

If this system actually worked, my work wouldn't even be necessary.

That's what you get in this country when you give a shit, and try to make the world a better place. You work tirelessly and end up lonely, isolated, and bitter.

This isn't just about me - talk to anyone else who devotes their life to something other than the pursuit of capital: Talk to the teachers, the community doctors, the nurses, the social workers, the EMTs, the servicepeople... The world falls apart without their sacrifices. And what do they get for it? A subsistence living, and the opportunity to drag themselves home and drown their troubles away. And do it again the next day. "Selling their souls working all day; Overtime hours for bullshit pay."

"It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to

For people like me, people like you

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true

But it is oh, it is"

As much as I sympathize with Oliver Anthony's nostalgia, the reality is that the world has always been shit "for people like me, and people like you". The reality of life for most people throughout world history has been bleak. On most objective metrics, our lives have never been better.

Yes, we have to contend with modern-day crises like record-level income disparity, the breakdown of families and local social support systems, and anomie in a meaningless world. But at least we aren't dying of cholera. Our boys aren't getting gassed in the trenches (though the citizens of Ukraine might differ on this subject). Women aren't at risk of death every time they deliver a child. At least we have heat, light, and Netflix to make drowning our troubles away a little bit easier.

This isn't to say that I disagree with Oliver Anthony's message, that today's world is shit. This is just to say that it's always been shit, so let's not get too nostalgic about it.

"Livin' in the new world with an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond

Lord, knows they all just wanna 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 shit and it's taxed to no end

'Cause of rich men north of Richmond"

I agree with Oliver Anthony about the level of control that powerful people (the rich men north of Richmond) want to have over the rest of us. Every day I feel like I'm living in a fishbowl of propaganda. The false dichotomy of our politics, pretending as if the world can be broken down into two political parties that claim to speak for the needs of their constituents, while actually pissing all over their constituents, and pretending it's raining.

We have, as a culture, decided to put up with the world that prior generations would consider a dystopia. For a little more comfort, and a little more access to amusing "content" on the internet, we have given up our privacy, our dignity, and our freedom of expression.

Every single one of us, myself very much included, have willingly given up our privacy, and control over our lives, in exchange for meaningless comforts. In 1984, Apple ran a classic Superbowl ad in which a woman smashed big brother. Today, Apple *is* big brother. You and I have willingly grown addicted to devices which track our movements and subject our thoughts to mind control.

And on the subject of "taxes", Oliver Anthony is absolutely right - but it's not as simple as some right-wing politicians would have you believe. Sure, a giant chunk of your money gets taken directly out of your paycheck, and diverted to questionable causes, or simply grifted away by a corrupt kleptocracy.

But it's more than that - the real "taxes" aren't imposed by the IRS. The real "taxes" are much more insidious. Because of out-of-control inflation, "your dollar ain't shit". The cost of basic living is completely out of control for most working people. There was a time when an education and an honest job could guarantee a decent life for a family of four. Now you need four honest jobs just to fund an education. Healthcare costs are insane. Housing costs are insane. Transportation costs are insane. The basic dignity of a couple of weeks of annual leisure time is a pipe-dream for blue collar people. This economic system is a complete and total failure for practically everyone, except for the rich men north of Richmond.

"I wish politicians would look out for minors

And not just minors on an island somewhere"

Clever wordplay.

At the risk of sounding like a Q-Anon lunatic, I do think that it's appropriate to question what happened to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and his clientele. This isn't to suggest that there is a cabal of wealthy child-raping perverts out there. But the resistance of the political system to a full investigation of the suspicious surroundings around Epstein really is concerning.

Coming back around to the concerns I have about our criminal justice system, it is just plain weird to consider that Jeffrey Epstein had some of the most powerful men in the world, raping young girls on a private island. None of these men faced justice.

I'm working my ass off to protect the freedom of 19-year-olds charged with stealing perfume, while literal tycoons get away with the most sordid crimes imaginable (not to mention their rampant financial crimes), without so much as an honest investigation.

Q-Anon or not... does this feel right to you? Not to me.

"Lord, we got folks in the street ain't got nothin' to eat

And the obese milkin' welfare

But God, if you're five foot three and you're three hundred pounds

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

This was the lyric that got the most heat from left-wing commenters on the internet. As much as I like this song, and believe that Oliver Anthony means well, I have to say that this lyric is oddly misplaced.

The reality is that the five-foot three, three hundred pound person who depends on welfare to kill themselves with fudge rounds is as much of a victim of the "rich men North of Richmond" as anyone. They exist in this rigged system, with no hope of a better life, and the one thing that gives them any comfort is food.

When Oliver Anthony sings about "drowning his troubles away", he's just engaging in the same self-destructive behavior as those who drown their troubles away in fudge rounds. Hell, Oliver Anthony kind of has a gut himself, so I'm sure he can relate.

How much money do the rich men north of Richmond make from their investments in McKee foods, the maker of Fudge Rounds? How about Coca Cola? McDonald's? How about the food industry generally? How much money has been spent on developing cheap, hyper-palatable, addictive food, which causes people prone to obesity to succumb to their vices? How much government capital is invested in subsidizing corn syrup, and other poisons that we know are detrimental to human health?

Who truly benefits? Is it the 5'3", 300-pound sad sack who eats himself to death, or the "rich man north of Richmond" who sells the fudge rounds?

"Young men are putting themselves six feet in the ground

'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kicking them down"

This is the line that really broke me down, and inspired me to write this post. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried when I heard it.

I've lost too many loved ones to suicide and drug abuse. I've lost too many clients. I literally can't deal with it anymore. I'm surrounded by death. All the time. Just as I think the world is better, I read about this friend hanging off a tree in Springside park, or that client overdosing in a dumpster.

Not a day goes by when I don't think about Leo, literally the brightest, most charismatic person whom I have ever met, dying of a drug overdose because our criminal justice system destroyed his life.

Not a day goes by when I don't think about Audrey, the most soulful, beautiful girl, who killed herself due to self-loathing and alcohol abuse.

Not a day goes by when I don't think about Derek, who killed himself due to a lifetime of child abuse, and homelessness.

And these were just the personal friends. If I tried listing the clients who died deaths of despair, I would not get through the list.

All of these people were in their 20s and 30s. They had the potential to live long, beautiful lives. But instead they are ghosts whose memories haunt the people who loved them. And why? Because this world is fucked up. Because people rather drown themselves in alcohol, or opiates, or fudge rounds, than face life in this system that benefits nobody other than the "rich men North of Richmond".

This song probably won't change anything. The "rich men North of Richmond" will keep winning, and the rest of us will keep losing.

But to me, it meant so much that that a sweaty ginger redneck could sing this song in the forest, and just for a second, the whole world stopped to listen.