Billy Bragg Says People Upset About The "Rich Men" Should Join A Union And Fight, Not Sink To Race-Baiting & Conspiracy Theories

"Since I saw that clip of Oliver Anthony singing his song 'Rich Men North of Richmond', the ghost of Woody Guthrie has been whispering in my ear. "Help that guy out" Woody keeps telling me "Let him know there's a way to deal with those problems he's singing about". So today I sat down and wrote this response to Mr Anthony's song, for people like him and people like you..." Billy Bragg, August 2023

Oliver Anthony's "Rich Men North of Richmond" came out of no where to become a viral hit this summer, as well as a cultural and political touchstone. It was hailed as a searing declaration of working class resentment, but upon closer examination, it seemed to give in to conspiracy theories and race-baiting rather than seek actual solutions to very real problems.

Billy Bragg has a response:

Rich Men Earning North of a Million

[Verse 1]
If you're selling your soul, working all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Well, nothing's gonna change if all you do
Is wish you could wake up and it not be true

[Chorus 1]
Join a union
Fight for better pay
You better join a union, brother
Organize today
You'll see where the problem really lies
When the union comes around
Rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down

[Verse 2]
If you form a union, you'll soon find
That working people are all of one kind
So we ain't gonna punch down on those who need
A bit of understanding and some solidarity
That ain't right friend

[Verse 3]
If you're struggling with your health and you're putting on the pounds
Doctor gives you opiates to help you get around
Well, wouldn't it be better for folks like you and me
If medicine was subsidized and healthcare was free?

[Chorus 2]
Join a union
Fight for better pay
Come on and join a union, sister
Organize today
It comes down to the selfsame thing
If you're black or white or brown
Rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down

[Verse 4]
Well, we know your culture wars are there to distract
While libertarian billionaires avoid paying tax
You wanna talk about bathrooms while the floodwaters rise
The forest is on fire and the wind burns our eyes, ah!
Something's wrong here

[Verse 5]
Well, they wanna divide us because together we're strong
Are you gonna take action now you sung your damn song?
If you don't like the rich men having total control
You better get the union to roll

[Chorus 3]
Join a union
Fight for better pay
Come on and join a union
Organise today
Don't matter if you live in the city
Or some little country town
Rich men earning north of a million
Rich men earning north of a million
I say, rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down

[Outro]
If you're selling your soul and you're working all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Join a union

The Guardian: Oliver Anthony’s divisive song claiming solidarity with workers only benefits the rich who exploit them

Billy Bragg

The YouTube singer’s US No 1 hit Rich Men North of Richmond rails against billionaires but punches down on the poor. So I decided to write a song in reply

Tue 22 Aug 2023 04.59 EDT

‘Don’t mourn: organise” were the last words of the great union songwriter Joe Hill, framed on a murder charge and executed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November 1915. A reminder to activists that the struggle carries on even though a strike may end in defeat, they’re also a handy maxim for anyone writing songs about the pressures that working people face. If you hope to inspire, rather than just providing a litany of problems, then it’s necessary for your song to offer some vision of redemption. While it is clearly beyond the scope of the songwriter to provide a cure for society’s ills, there is a role to play in calling out where you perceive the problem to lie and suggesting a possible way forward.

Joe Hill’s words came to mind when I heard Rich Men North of Richmond, a song posted on YouTube two weeks ago by Oliver Anthony, a young singer from Farmville, Virginia. The clip has since had 31m views. Yesterday it entered the Billboard charts at No 1, an unprecedented feat for an artist with no prior recording history.

At first glimpse, the video clip looked like my kind of music: a young bearded guy up in the woods of Appalachia, playing a resonator guitar. As soon as he started singing, I was on board. “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day, overtime hours for bullshit pay.” Preach, brother! When Anthony sang of “rich men north of Richmond, they want to have total control” I had in my mind corporate America, the tech bro billionaires whose companies monitor their workers all the way to the bathroom and back.

Oliver Anthony: Rich Men North of Richmond – video

I was still with him when he highlighted “folks on the street with nothing to eat” but was brought up sharp when he followed it with “and the obese milkin’ welfare”. Whoa! What is he saying here? Homeless hungry people need help, but not if they’re overweight? When the next line attacked short, fat people who receive welfare only to spend it on chocolate biscuits, I figured the song was a parody. Why didn’t he rhyme “tax” with “snacks”, the songwriter in me thought. But it isn’t a parody.

The protest song that’s taken America by storm hits too many false notes

Kenan Malik

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Anthony really does punch down on the poor. The lives of ordinary working people are being torn apart by the rich, he laments, but we can fix it if we cut welfare – and taxes too. Listening to the lyrics in that context, I came to understand why the song had gone viral among rightwing figures in the US. It’s a classic example of the divisive narrative that bosses have used to pit worker against worker since the days of Joe Hill. If the poor are fighting one another over racial hierarchy or cultural grievance, their anger will be directed away from the people responsible for their plight – the rich who exploit those in work and abandon those in need.

Anthony has said that he hoped the song would capture the voice of blue-collar workers who feel like they can’t get ahead, which is a laudable aim, but he doesn’t seem aware that there is a remedy for that problem, one which empowers working people. His home state Virginia is currently undergoing a resurgence in union activism. Local radio station WVTF reported last year that the push to organise is being led by young people around Anthony’s age. Joining a union won’t solve all of the problems he sings about, but if he really wants to stop rich men having total control, then organising in the workplace is surely the first step to gaining some sense of agency?

Billy Bragg: Rich Men Earning North of a Million – video

There’s a tradition in popular music of artists writing “answer songs” that reply to issues raised by the hits of the day, so this weekend I sat down to compose a response to Rich Men North of Richmond that offered some fraternal advice to the beleaguered characters Anthony represents. Given I was writing in a country style, I thought of how Johnny Paycheck was able to express the anger of the working man without blaming those worse off than him in Take This Job and Shove It. I recalled how Johnny Cash believed in flag, faith and family, yet wore black in solidarity with the poor. But most of all, I thought of Woody Guthrie who wrote: “I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. I’m out to fight those songs to my very last breath.”

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Woody knew that cynicism was the enemy of all of us who want to make a better world, so I’m ignoring those who accuse Anthony of deliberately stoking the culture wars that have divided America. I hear someone struggling to make sense of a world in which help is hard to come by. I wish Oliver Anthony all the best with his newfound fame. I hope it allows him to make a living playing music. But I know from experience that he’s going to face a lot of scrutiny from partisan players demanding he clarify his politics.

I wrote to offer him the perspective of someone whose understanding of solidarity and songwriting was shaped 40 years ago by the miner’s strike. The lesson I learned is as relevant today as it was back then: There is power in a union.

Rich Men North of Richmond by Oliver AnthonyI've been sellin' my soul, workin' 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

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 is

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 wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' 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
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down

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 is

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've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay