Disturbing

Music, Tragedy

I’m a little worried about all the hoopla surrounding the songs of latest phenom Oliver Anthony.  (For those who don’t know who he is, here is his story, and here are his two latest songs: Rich Men North Of Richmond and I Want To Go Home.  Listen to all of that, and what follows may make more sense to you.)

There are two points to be made here, the first being the more important.

Jeff Reynolds at PJM says that Anthony’s voice is evocative of American singers like Levon Helm, B.B. King and John Fogerty.  I am fans of all of them, but I can listen to them sing all day.  I can’t do that with Oliver Anthony, because there’s too much pain there, and it hurts to listen to him.  His voice reminds me of Amy Winehouse, whom I also find difficult to listen to for precisely the same reasons.

It’s clear that Anthony will run the risk of ending up like Winehouse (whose tragedy I explored here):  manipulated by others for their own purposes and benefit (whom, thankfully, he’s so far managed to keep at bay — not the least by telling the music industry to fuck off with their multi-million-dollar poisoned apples).  I hope he stands firm.

The second part of this is that the agony of which this young man sings is clearly resonating with millions of Americans, because what he’s talking about is real.  People are being fucked over by government and people who control the media, people are being fucked over by companies, and people are facing a future that is, frankly, as bleak and horrible as he sees his own.

And here’s where the second bunch of bloodsuckers come into the picture.  Expect soon that the political types will step forward, trying to claim the ground that Anthony and so many others like him are standing on, and making politicians’ promises to fix the circumstances that they — all of them — have been complicit in the creation thereof.

I hope that Oliver Anthony tells them, too, to fuck off.

Here’s the takeaway from all this.  The reason for Anthony’s runaway success is that millions of people not only feel his pain, but share his pain.

And unless I miss my guess, come 2024 those millions of people are going to vote for the candidate whom they think will best help alleviate it.

The political establishment had better hope that they do it through the vote, by the way, because the alternative is kinda messy.

9 comments

  2. Many singers singing voice is completely different than their speaking voice.
    And who are we to judge what he means by diverse? Are we to jump to the same dog whistle the leftists use- operate by a sacred litany with every phrase and statement having to be approved from on high by the zealots?

  3. As I commented over at Insty, liberals don’t understand* Oliver Anthony’s cri de coeur, as it rails against political corruption and cultural rot. They’re quite comfortable with the corruption and the rot.

    (*Actually, I could have ended this comment here and it would be perfect, but a little more context was needed.)

    1. interesting song but the more he speaks the more he sounds like a confused imbecile like many on the left.

      JQ

  5. ” … The political establishment had better hope that they do it through the vote, by the way, because the alternative is kinda messy.”

    Agreed! But, there is a voice within me that screams out “The mess is the only thing these a**holes understand……better to just waste them.”
    Perhaps, “the mess” will buy us a couple centuries of order under a restored Republic.

    1. Some people learn when you tell them don’t touch the hot stove. Others refuse to listen and demand to touch the stove for themselves to learn that it is too hot to touch. Too many politicians, bureaucrats, NGOs, petty tyrants, propagandists etc need to touch that stove and grab a hold hard in order for them to learn.

      JQ

  6. I finally got around to listening to this the other day.

    What I heard wasn’t a Red or Blue partisan song, but rather, and indictment of our corrupted institutions.

    Whether this guy is a false flag or not isn’t as relevant as the resonant reaction he’s setup, both among those who embrace, and those who reject the message >>they hear<<.

    The people with the greates rejection reaction are those aligned with the institutions, and those with the greatest embracement are those who recognize the taint those institutions carry.

    Truth be told, we're past Republican v Democrat. We're pretty deep into all bets are off territory. We're suffering from corrupt institutions powered by a Post Constitutional order that was primarily a project of the Democrats, with the active collaboration of the Institutional Republicans as junior partner.

    I think the smart folks who are aligned with the institutions understand that this song, and the reaction to it is a something of a voice from the shadows.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slfnj0_2F8k

    1. I believe Reagan recognized the absurdity of right versus left in his 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing” where he proposed that the two options are up to prosperity and liberty or down to totalitarianism.

      JQ

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