Rich Men North of Rich...

Rich Men North of Richmond

Lyrics

I'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.

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

Analysis

In this powerful anthem, Oliver Anthony (Christopher Anthony Lunsford) provides a convincing populist critique of today's dysfunctional federal government.

In the first two stanzas, he laments the working class being underpaid for long hours of hard work. He feels that his life is wasted and turns to alcohol to try to cope with the nightmare which has become his reality.

In the refrain, Anthony places the blame for the dilemma of the working class squarely on the "rich men north of Richmond," Virginia. Washington, DC is about 90 min north of Richmond on Interstate 95 and he is referring to politicians who are consolidating power with modern technology and oppressing citizens with inflation based theft and high taxes.

In the next two verses, Anthony calls out the perverse element of the powerful elite who eschew advocacy for miners working in (presumably coal) mines for travel to private islands owned by wealthy pedophiles. He also laments how the working poor are struggling to get by while the non-working poor on government handouts have a better standard of living. Welfare recipients themselves are also being sabotaged by a government that subsidizes their consumption of junk food presumably accelerating their circle of misery with obesity related medical disease. The resulting engineered transgenerational hopelessness is so profound that young men commit suicide.

RIch Men North OF RICHMOND