Anthony Oliver’s Rich Men North of Richmond took the internet by storm recently. While it does have elements of class struggle in it, it ruins it all with the direct attack on welfare recipients. This is not a working class ballad. There are many better songs out there that do not attack the working class.
Here are just a few that I recommend.
Les Rice’s Banks of Marble (here performed by Pete Seeger) is everything Rich Men North of Richmond should be if it wanted to really critique the capitalist system.
Phil Och’s Love Me I’m A Liberal is still relevant today. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Joe Hill’s Rebel Girl (performed here by Mats Paulson) was written by Joe Hill while he was in prison as a tribute to Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn. No more needs to be said.
And as long as we’re talking about Joe Hill here is I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night - performed by Joan Baez, lyrics by Alfred Hayes, music by Earl Robinson.
Woody Guthrie giving us a history lesson on the Ludlow Massacre.
The incredible Nina Simone telling us that we need a Revolution.
And last, but certainly not least, Tom Lehrer revealing the US and their long ties to Nazis with Wernher von Braun.
There are plenty of working class songs out there that target the correct people, not those who are on welfare. These are just a few of them. If we want to critique capital through music, we should do it correctly.
Thank you, Birrion. Great list of songs! I'm a huge Phil Ochs fan so I was happy to see you include one of his.
Of course, I doubt it was Anthony's intention to write an anti-capitalist classic. But it's too bad that he put in a line that will automatically make him a Nazi in the eyes of the liberals..... most of whom won't appreciate the main sentiment. Since I added a comment on Bill Astore's article, I'll just repost it here, FWIW.
I did notice that Oliver Anthony’s song is being portrayed in media as a Right Wing rallying call. Unfortunately, he's got the main part right... he just slipped in a slap at welfare 'queens' and that was enough for the purveyors of the culture war to jump on it to make sure that the sides stay at war.
Of course, that one unfortunate attack (unfortunate as it's on fellow poor, and it just feeds the cultural divide) has been part of the culture war for some time. The working class has long been primed to see all welfare recipients as 'cheats'... stealing their hard earned pay. After all it was Bill Clinton who helped in that stigmatization, with his declared intent to "end Welfare as we know it".. Raw meat for the troops, I suppose.
So Anthony, even as he has part of the story right, allows his programming to help the very people he really was targeting in the main- the rich who benefit from underpaid labor of the peons. Again, this isn't surprising- however missed an opportunity it was to help build solidarity with other victims of Reverse Robin-Hoodism.
BTW, " Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" - I love it! And Ochs' "Love Me I'm A Liberal" has long been a favorite... I often post links to it to emphasize the point.