Owing to the late start I mentioned earlier, and still being not entirely sure that this whole phantom-pain business is done messing me around just yet, I decided to make the Monday Substack outing short, sweet, and straight to the point: “Who says miracles don’t happen anymore?” Since it’s so brief, I won’t bother with an excerpt beyond the opening ‘graph, so’s you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into here:
Last week over at the CF Mothership, Barry posted a heartfelt cri de coeur by a young troubadour by the name of Oliver Anthony, of whom I hadn’t heard before. His is quite a stirring story, as it turns out…
Go ye and read of it, for short as it is, it still packs a mighty wallop.
Update! A-yup, it sure looks as if this Anthony lad’s powerful little ditty has really struck a nerve.
It’s a battle cry for people who want to resist the control of big money and big government but know they are losing the fight. They resent being investigated by the FBI as potential terrorists when they speak out at school board meetings or affiliate with a traditional branch of the Catholic Church. They see a government eager to prosecute political candidates from one party but not the other. They see violent street riots go unprosecuted and the southern border left open in violation of the law, fairness, and public safety. They see their children shut out of public schools for over a year by teachers unions and so-called experts with more power than evidence.
It’s impossible to understand the popularity of “Rich Men North of Richmond” without understanding the widely shared grievances behind it. Anthony voices one of them as, “I wish politicians would look out for miners, and not just minors on an island somewhere.” You don’t have to love coal-fired electric power plants to have sympathy for the people who have lost their jobs, their hope, and their future.
His anguished conclusion follows naturally:
Lord, it’s a damn shame
What the world’s gotten to
For people like me, and people like you
Wish I could just wake up, and it not be true
But it is, oh, it isA whole lot of people agree, and they’re not passive. They’re furious. Oliver Anthony is the eloquent voice of that fury.
Remains to be seen whether or not they’re passive, actually. But fury will be the determining factor in the transition, if any, from passive to active, just as it ever has been. That transition, should it occur, will take place with a swiftness and suddenness that will take pretty much everybody by surprise—the just and the malificent alike.
Big-time update! I won’t bother chasing down all the links now, but I see from my daily Twitter X email that Lauren Boebert, MTG, the Hodge Twins, and several other “names” have all enthusiastically endorsed Oliver Anthony and his smash-hit tune. Hell, even the illustrious and beloved Catturd has given it a hearty two-thumbs-up.
Country music has gone woke and is awful now – they basically have horrible writers writing unfeeling cheesy clichés that rhyme – then they get an untalented but really good looking person to sing it. Country music has lost its soul. This is why we’re all cheering Oliver. He’s… https://t.co/8ooISyCtup
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2)
Kind of a big deal, no?
Fount of wisdom update! The pure 190-proof stuff, straight from the source.
Anthony further discussed this in a video uploaded to his YouTube page. He said, “I know we’re living in dark times, and I know that this is really just the beginning of what’s to come.” His deep empathy for those of us adrift in societal ambivalence was apparent.
“There’s a lot of beautiful people in this world, and I meet a lot of awesome people every day,” said Anthony. “The universal thing I see is that it’s like no matter how hard they push and how much effort they put into whatever it is they’re doing, they just can’t quite get ahead.”
“Rich Men North Of Richmond,” according to Anthony, is relatively apolitical. He said, “It seems like both sides serve the same master. And that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country.”
On skyrocketing suicide rates, he said, “Those aren’t problems; those are symptoms of a bigger universal problem, and a lot of people know that. It’s common sense, but we don’t talk about it enough.”
“If you take anything away from me and the music I write, it’s that this life is a beautiful opportunity,” he said. “There is a divine creator that loves you, and sometimes it takes falling down on your knees and getting ready to call things quits before it becomes obvious that he’s there. He’s always there; you just gotta look out for him and listen for him.”
In this next, umm, Tweet (am I still allowed to call it that?), Oliver announces his first-ever live gig:
August 13th
Morris Farm Market
Currituck NC
Free Admission
Food and drinks available
1:30pm-2:30pm
Many more shows to follow. Don’t stress it if it’s a long drive for you. I’ll be coming to your town soon. pic.twitter.com/Nz6ueTTMi4— Oliver Anthony (@AintGottaDollar)
So how did it go, then? Swimmingly, to say the very least.
Saturday (Sunday, actually—M), Oliver Anthony held a free performance at Morris Farm Market, in Currituck, N.C., and was joined by country music star Jamey Johnson. According to the Rumble video version of the performance there,
[w]e filled 25 acres with cars and an entire venue of amazing people. I wanted to share so you could all see it. I am still blown away. Thank you for everything. I will never let you down.
Bold mine, because, I mean, just WOW. The upshot: Oliver Anthony is the real deal, no pretense or pose, no phoniness or artifice about him anywhere to be seen. He’s forged an incredibly powerful connection with the millions of Real Americans just like him out there owing to that simple fact—a connection the scum-sucking ProPols “north of Richmond” can only stand in awe, envy, and stark incomprehension of.
Why, it’s almost as if those Real Americans in their multitudes had been just waiting for someone like Oliver to come along and speak the honest truth to them, without any of the condescension or pandering they’re used to getting from their self-proclaimed “betters.” It’s a safe bet that at least some of them had begun to lose hope that he ever would.
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Mighty fine!
I’m still amazed, both with the story of Oliver and the song itself.
Hope you feel better soon. I’ve boned up on phantom pain and it seems to effect almost all amputee’s to some degree. Nasty business.
Oh, it is at that. After watching the GF’s dad go through all he had to go through over the course of about three years or so, I thought I was at least somewhat aware of what was coming. I mean, I literally saw the man openly weeping from it on several occasions, it was just awful to watch it happen. But over the last few months, I’ve found out the hard way just how little I really knew. As if losing a limb itself wasn’t bad enough…
Lisa’s poor dad had his leg amputated almost all the way up to the hip. Bone marrow cancer, if I remember right. Talk about your nasty stuff!
I don’t think any of us truly understand anyone else’s pain unless we go through it, with one exception.
Your children’s pain hurts you worse than them.
Well just damn. Currituck. I didn’t know that’s where he played. I love the entire coastal region of NC.
The people of coastal NC are pretty down to earth.
Trump signs are EVERYWHERE 🙂