A no-name Virginia country singer has gone to the top of the charts in a little over a few days.
The song has echoes of the song “Fortunate Son,” which spoke of the rich elitists getting out of serving in Vietnam in the 1970s.
“I’ve been selling my soul, working all day/ Overtime hours for bullsh– pay,” country music newcomer Oliver Anthony sings in the song’s opening lines.
Anthony performance funnels the pain, frustration and angst of the working class into the lines of the song “Rich Men North Of Richmond.”
“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,” he sings.
“Things were not good for a lot of people and in some respects I was one of those people,” Anthony said. “I had wasted a lot of nights getting high and getting drunk and I had sort of gotten to a point in my life where even things that I did care about didn’t mean anything to me anymore. This is certainly no Dr. Phil episode, but I found an outlet in this music. I started uploading a couple of songs.”
Anthony has uploaded more songs as well and his popularity is taking off.
From Billboard.com:
A performance video of “Rich Men North of Richmond,” posted by radiowv, has surpassed 2 million views, just two days after its release on YouTube. “Rich Men From North Richmond” has also surged to No. 1 on the iTunes Country chart, outpacing the former chart leader, Jason Aldean’s controversial track “Try That in a Small Town.”
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Though “Rich Men” is at the pinnacle of the iTunes chart, it’s not the only song from Oliver that is gaining traction. His previously released songs including “Ain’t Gotta Dollar,” “I’ve Got to Get Sober” and “I Want to Go Home” are also on the iTunes Country chart.
Anthony has said that there is a full project on the way adding that there are a lot of “positive songs” too.
John Rich has offered to produce Oliver’s album.
