This is fantastic. I've been chewing on my love for this song and this problematic second verse all day. Your essay captures everything I was thinking (and more) but did not have words to say. 🙌
Agreed. Economic ignorance is just another way they kneecap us. Federal taxes don't get reallocated. Money is spent into existence. Welfare, like Brook noted, is primarily corporate.
The Lefties that can’t identify with this song are the ones who have allowed themselves to be told what they stand for. Don’t feel dismay, that’s not the crowd to identify with at either end of the spectrum.
When the establishment believes jokes and songs are more dangerous than child trafficking or government corruption, you really shouldn't need to see anything else to want to wake yourself up from this nightmare.
We have ALL been asleep for far too long. Mock them until the puppet strings snap.
It ought to but the song should really be "rich men north of Arkansas", cuz he HRC Clintons, are the meanest rich folk left killers around including Obama, who is in martha's way north of richmond
The left today ain't anti-war, they're pro-war,
Funny in 1930's they said RINO's steal your money, demoRats get you into wars, now we're back there all over again
Good song, but it has no call to action and both left&right, demoRat, & RINO can say they own it,
Until this guy calls for hanging the COVID enablers from trees, the music has no where to go
Today the CLINTON FOUNDATION cash all in DUBAI, is at $30 Billion USD, not bad for a secretary-of-State on a two year gig
This is the wealth north or richmond, we're talking about, and OBAMA too, sure Trump's got his kids foundation money as well, it all needs to be clawed back, and used to rebuild the USA
It’s worth noting that Jason Aldean never mentions BLM once in his song. If you think that carjacking old ladies and robbing liquor stores is somehow related to BLM or black people generally that says more about you than it does about Jason Aldean. When I heard the song I pictured Antifa who I see as predominantly spoiled white kids trying to be tough as the aforementioned group of trouble makers. Maybe you should revisit the song and then ask yourself some hard questions.
ah! thank you for this. i’m repeating a line i heard repeatedly on twitter ini left circles. i decided it wasn’t worth listening to, b/c i don’t care for nashville-manufactured artists and that was lazy. i’ll spend some time listening today and append a note. thank you!!
on the subject of antifa...back in occupy we had a real problem with the “black bloc” which were a bunch of dudes (always dudes no one knew) w/face masks (bandit masks) who broke windows and turned ppl against us. my sense is that the black bloc became antifa. there’s no way to separate the provocateurs from ppl/w good intent. lots of footage from BLM 2020 shows neighborhood ppl calling out lone white dudes dressed in black w/gaiter masks breaking windows and setting fires. they’re giving cover to feds.
Oliver Anthony is also a “b/c i don’t care for nashville-manufactured artists”. You think he was just out in the woods with his expensive guitar, his dogs and some 4K cameras recording all by himself. Ben Shapiro is the one who juiced him.
It seems people are no longer able to grasp pure emotion expressed imperfectly through words. It is the pure emotion that matters and this man is clearly an emotional giant. This tuned me into the Saxon half of my family, all dead now, because this cold reptilian life is just too hard for people of pure emotions.
Love your analysis--the serious, the funny, and the educational! As an American who lived in Europe for 2 1/2 years back in the 90s, I am always skeptical of people who start off their sentences, “The problem with America is ...” and then proceed to sing the praises of other countries. Largely the reason that European countries make their systems work is because they are much smaller than the US, and their countries mandate compliance to their systems. I’m not saying they don’t have some good ideas, but have you paid attention to what’s going on with Parisian working class protesters and Norwegian farmers protesting? There is no system of perfect government on earth at this time. There exists equal amounts of greed and envy on the earth. But what I get from this song and your analysis is that people want a little true justice. I do too.
i could’ve written 12,000 words had i gone into what’s happening in Europe (i’ll get around to that!). what i call exported American neoliberal policies (some may disagree with the nomenclature) are ruining both southern and northern europe. i follow a lot of brits and europeans on twitter and ppl seem to ‘get it.’ privatization schemes, pension cuts, bogus “climate” fixes (whole other piece!) show the entry points for the policies that have the potential to wreck europe.
*on climate…i’ve organized for environmental issues since college. actions falling under the “climate” rubric are corp schemes that will have no effect on the environment, let alone the climate. we need clean water, clean air, sane land use, reforestation, and real energy solutions that don’t kill our ecosystems.
What a fantastic article. This song came across my radar only yesterday and I was floored, moved, upset, and excited all at once. Your examination of it, of the culture that is currently ripping at it like a carcass, and the aspects briefly missed by the “debate” are very thought provoking and needed. New subscriber here.. and I love your tag line too... couldn’t agree more, until you write about it you don’t know what you think. Thanks again
when i was YOUNG 😝 i spent about 10 yrs in east tenn working/being entertained at a very special place called The Down Home, where i was first exposed to real music: bluegrass, blues, zydeco, mountain folk…even theater (Road Company). i met some of the most amazing ppl; drank moonshine, passed bowls around, shot the shit. that was closest thing i had to family.
hearing that song put me right back there. when a talent emerges like that (and there’s others on the RADIOWV channel) i feel a responsibility to lift them up. music is so damn hard, and i know Anthony is seeing a bit of that underbelly today. he seems to have his feet planted firmly on the ground, where they belong. the kid needs a lawyer and he probably doesn’t even know it yet 😢
Hi Brook. I just found your blog and read this piece, and the one from Feb about manipulation in the entertainment industry, and both are fabulous. Well done and thank you!
thank you so much 💕 i was appalled to stumble upon that material on the entertainment industry b/c the artists who are struggling the most had the most to lose for not toeing the line. they got the thumbscrews, so to speak, while Colbert et al had resources thrown at them.
He looks like a good musician to me. Awesome, great article here. Apparently, there is an issue we need to take apart. Well, here is what I wrote: /It is a "class" issue. There is an alleged to be a dis- coordination of issues. This singer and guitar player thinks differently, that is all it is. He thinks as does others around him in his part of the country. There is no substantial difference to be worrying you self over. We are the same on the matter of what is going on in this country and society. What would that be? It is a political or social situation as far as I know. He gives people a different look to take into consideration, because his list of issues is a little different. He just puts together a different laundry list and coordinates certain details different. That is a class matter. He is just the real working class. Is that a problem? Not much need to think any further about this, am I RIGHT? Th guy definitely looks okay. Bo and read my articles: I have lots of articles all there ready ~ on my newsletter.
Thank you for sharing your perspective on this very interesting phenomenon, Brook.
As a footnote to some of your observations in the essay and comments, I found it sadly fascinating that one person who I shared the video with when it had but a few million views, thought Oliver Anthony's voice impressive and worthwhile, but decided she had no interest in any of his other songs after the media "hit pieces" came out.
From the perspective of a formerly radical leftist turned Liberal, the demand for conformity appears to have come full circle. Half a century ago, it was the so-called "conservatives" demanding censorship, vilification and conformity. And War. And increased competition for limited resources via flooding labor and housing markets with demand that increased the "speed of the treadmill."
They weren't "conservative," by any stretch of the imagination. They were a cadre of oligarchs and an army of conformists.
We now see self-professed "Liberals," a cohort that includes those advocating for liberty back in the day, marching in lockstep according to whatever the apparatchiki orders them to think.
As I contemplate the result of the "long march" that I advocated for, fifty years ago and helped to enable, nothing describes the feeling more poignantly than the metaphor of a car-chasing dog that finally caught one.
Turns out that car ain't what it was thought to be.
Thanks again for the essay. Anthony writes and sings about what he witnesses and experiences, and his is a voice that is resonating with the working classes all over the world. As one who followed the Bluegrass revival back in the seventies, I think you captured the zeitgeist of that genre very well indeed, and quire amusingly, too.
thank you 💕 i’ve shared the experiences you mention above. about left perspectives (rad left & liberal) our principles have never changed. the dem machine’s rhetoric and policy has changed, and that’s had a ripple effect thru the culture of the left—so most of us are considered “politically homeless” now. i’m okay with that.
The savage (in my opinion) distortion of the Overton Window has been destructive, Brook, and many of my fellow Liberals are becoming increasingly distressed by that.
There was a time when we all checked in with the "alternative media" as a matter of course. I am deeply saddened at the way those around me who are old enough to know better, have gradually accepted curation of their intellectual input.
I see the ascendancy of what we used to refer to as "the ultraleft," meaning the revolutionary cadre that caviled at nothing to gain power, as fulfilling its purpose. Having been adjacent to them (meaning drawing the line I would not cross at violence or sedition,) I am more familiar with their tactics than most.
i was a publisher of ‘alternative media’ for a few years, and have always sought out indie media b/c i loved it. you can barely find alt media anymore which makes the situation w/Overton so much worse. attempts to silence dissent thru “misinformation” projects is simply the institutionalization of a propaganda regime that should put everyone on notice that things are not okay.
The “problematic” lyrics only go to demonstrate how the US boutique left have not been vocal enough about what are the real reasons why people like Anthony are feeling so left behind. The left should be all over these left behind people and places and giving them the right information as to why it ain’t the obese person on benefits who’s keeping them down, it’s tax dodging billionaires and corporations not paying their fair share and politicians on the payroll of donors. The reason why white working class, poor, are attracted to right-populism is because it’s giving them an explanation for their shitty lives. The fact that it’s the wrong explanation these folks are hearing is the fault of a complete vacuum of left-populist politics in these forgotten towns.
As someone who leans to the political right, I don't know that I agree with all your insights but I thought it was a very interesting article nonetheless. You're turning out to be one of the more interesting authors in my list of Substack's.
These songs have been coming up automatically for me on Rumble past few days. So not only am I watching unapproved naratives I'm listening to unapproved music. Culture is so critical, so much of why blood moves in our veins, which is why CIA works hard to destroy the family in any form - it always leads, they say, to fascism. Art, music, the "counter" culture - all so easily subverted by the love of money. Jesus and Buddha and Krishna and the Prophet - they all have words on that. What's happened last few years to comedians - ouch. George Carlin, we miss you; Bread and Circus soldiers on, but it's nowhere near enough. There's Joe Rogan and Tucker, but one doesn't embody them the way one does music, comedy and art.
This is fantastic. I've been chewing on my love for this song and this problematic second verse all day. Your essay captures everything I was thinking (and more) but did not have words to say. 🙌
thank you! i hope the best for this guy.
Agreed. Economic ignorance is just another way they kneecap us. Federal taxes don't get reallocated. Money is spent into existence. Welfare, like Brook noted, is primarily corporate.
The Lefties that can’t identify with this song are the ones who have allowed themselves to be told what they stand for. Don’t feel dismay, that’s not the crowd to identify with at either end of the spectrum.
Great song with a piercingly authentic point.
And I love your breakdown of it as well.
thank you—everything you say here is true.
When the establishment believes jokes and songs are more dangerous than child trafficking or government corruption, you really shouldn't need to see anything else to want to wake yourself up from this nightmare.
We have ALL been asleep for far too long. Mock them until the puppet strings snap.
It ought to but the song should really be "rich men north of Arkansas", cuz he HRC Clintons, are the meanest rich folk left killers around including Obama, who is in martha's way north of richmond
The left today ain't anti-war, they're pro-war,
Funny in 1930's they said RINO's steal your money, demoRats get you into wars, now we're back there all over again
Good song, but it has no call to action and both left&right, demoRat, & RINO can say they own it,
Until this guy calls for hanging the COVID enablers from trees, the music has no where to go
Today the CLINTON FOUNDATION cash all in DUBAI, is at $30 Billion USD, not bad for a secretary-of-State on a two year gig
This is the wealth north or richmond, we're talking about, and OBAMA too, sure Trump's got his kids foundation money as well, it all needs to be clawed back, and used to rebuild the USA
It’s worth noting that Jason Aldean never mentions BLM once in his song. If you think that carjacking old ladies and robbing liquor stores is somehow related to BLM or black people generally that says more about you than it does about Jason Aldean. When I heard the song I pictured Antifa who I see as predominantly spoiled white kids trying to be tough as the aforementioned group of trouble makers. Maybe you should revisit the song and then ask yourself some hard questions.
ah! thank you for this. i’m repeating a line i heard repeatedly on twitter ini left circles. i decided it wasn’t worth listening to, b/c i don’t care for nashville-manufactured artists and that was lazy. i’ll spend some time listening today and append a note. thank you!!
on the subject of antifa...back in occupy we had a real problem with the “black bloc” which were a bunch of dudes (always dudes no one knew) w/face masks (bandit masks) who broke windows and turned ppl against us. my sense is that the black bloc became antifa. there’s no way to separate the provocateurs from ppl/w good intent. lots of footage from BLM 2020 shows neighborhood ppl calling out lone white dudes dressed in black w/gaiter masks breaking windows and setting fires. they’re giving cover to feds.
Oliver Anthony is also a “b/c i don’t care for nashville-manufactured artists”. You think he was just out in the woods with his expensive guitar, his dogs and some 4K cameras recording all by himself. Ben Shapiro is the one who juiced him.
It seems people are no longer able to grasp pure emotion expressed imperfectly through words. It is the pure emotion that matters and this man is clearly an emotional giant. This tuned me into the Saxon half of my family, all dead now, because this cold reptilian life is just too hard for people of pure emotions.
Love your analysis--the serious, the funny, and the educational! As an American who lived in Europe for 2 1/2 years back in the 90s, I am always skeptical of people who start off their sentences, “The problem with America is ...” and then proceed to sing the praises of other countries. Largely the reason that European countries make their systems work is because they are much smaller than the US, and their countries mandate compliance to their systems. I’m not saying they don’t have some good ideas, but have you paid attention to what’s going on with Parisian working class protesters and Norwegian farmers protesting? There is no system of perfect government on earth at this time. There exists equal amounts of greed and envy on the earth. But what I get from this song and your analysis is that people want a little true justice. I do too.
i could’ve written 12,000 words had i gone into what’s happening in Europe (i’ll get around to that!). what i call exported American neoliberal policies (some may disagree with the nomenclature) are ruining both southern and northern europe. i follow a lot of brits and europeans on twitter and ppl seem to ‘get it.’ privatization schemes, pension cuts, bogus “climate” fixes (whole other piece!) show the entry points for the policies that have the potential to wreck europe.
*on climate…i’ve organized for environmental issues since college. actions falling under the “climate” rubric are corp schemes that will have no effect on the environment, let alone the climate. we need clean water, clean air, sane land use, reforestation, and real energy solutions that don’t kill our ecosystems.
😝 i wrote too much 🫠
Girl, I like the way you think...and write. You “get it.”
What a fantastic article. This song came across my radar only yesterday and I was floored, moved, upset, and excited all at once. Your examination of it, of the culture that is currently ripping at it like a carcass, and the aspects briefly missed by the “debate” are very thought provoking and needed. New subscriber here.. and I love your tag line too... couldn’t agree more, until you write about it you don’t know what you think. Thanks again
thank you so much!
when i was YOUNG 😝 i spent about 10 yrs in east tenn working/being entertained at a very special place called The Down Home, where i was first exposed to real music: bluegrass, blues, zydeco, mountain folk…even theater (Road Company). i met some of the most amazing ppl; drank moonshine, passed bowls around, shot the shit. that was closest thing i had to family.
hearing that song put me right back there. when a talent emerges like that (and there’s others on the RADIOWV channel) i feel a responsibility to lift them up. music is so damn hard, and i know Anthony is seeing a bit of that underbelly today. he seems to have his feet planted firmly on the ground, where they belong. the kid needs a lawyer and he probably doesn’t even know it yet 😢
Wow, that sounds like an amazing place to “come of age”. Thanks again!
I saw this on Twitter but passed on listening to it for the time being because I was busy looking at other things. Thanks for writing about it.
You're precisely right. This is a corporate welfare system.
Hi Brook. I just found your blog and read this piece, and the one from Feb about manipulation in the entertainment industry, and both are fabulous. Well done and thank you!
thank you so much 💕 i was appalled to stumble upon that material on the entertainment industry b/c the artists who are struggling the most had the most to lose for not toeing the line. they got the thumbscrews, so to speak, while Colbert et al had resources thrown at them.
He looks like a good musician to me. Awesome, great article here. Apparently, there is an issue we need to take apart. Well, here is what I wrote: /It is a "class" issue. There is an alleged to be a dis- coordination of issues. This singer and guitar player thinks differently, that is all it is. He thinks as does others around him in his part of the country. There is no substantial difference to be worrying you self over. We are the same on the matter of what is going on in this country and society. What would that be? It is a political or social situation as far as I know. He gives people a different look to take into consideration, because his list of issues is a little different. He just puts together a different laundry list and coordinates certain details different. That is a class matter. He is just the real working class. Is that a problem? Not much need to think any further about this, am I RIGHT? Th guy definitely looks okay. Bo and read my articles: I have lots of articles all there ready ~ on my newsletter.
Thank you for sharing your perspective on this very interesting phenomenon, Brook.
As a footnote to some of your observations in the essay and comments, I found it sadly fascinating that one person who I shared the video with when it had but a few million views, thought Oliver Anthony's voice impressive and worthwhile, but decided she had no interest in any of his other songs after the media "hit pieces" came out.
From the perspective of a formerly radical leftist turned Liberal, the demand for conformity appears to have come full circle. Half a century ago, it was the so-called "conservatives" demanding censorship, vilification and conformity. And War. And increased competition for limited resources via flooding labor and housing markets with demand that increased the "speed of the treadmill."
They weren't "conservative," by any stretch of the imagination. They were a cadre of oligarchs and an army of conformists.
We now see self-professed "Liberals," a cohort that includes those advocating for liberty back in the day, marching in lockstep according to whatever the apparatchiki orders them to think.
As I contemplate the result of the "long march" that I advocated for, fifty years ago and helped to enable, nothing describes the feeling more poignantly than the metaphor of a car-chasing dog that finally caught one.
Turns out that car ain't what it was thought to be.
Thanks again for the essay. Anthony writes and sings about what he witnesses and experiences, and his is a voice that is resonating with the working classes all over the world. As one who followed the Bluegrass revival back in the seventies, I think you captured the zeitgeist of that genre very well indeed, and quire amusingly, too.
thank you 💕 i’ve shared the experiences you mention above. about left perspectives (rad left & liberal) our principles have never changed. the dem machine’s rhetoric and policy has changed, and that’s had a ripple effect thru the culture of the left—so most of us are considered “politically homeless” now. i’m okay with that.
The savage (in my opinion) distortion of the Overton Window has been destructive, Brook, and many of my fellow Liberals are becoming increasingly distressed by that.
There was a time when we all checked in with the "alternative media" as a matter of course. I am deeply saddened at the way those around me who are old enough to know better, have gradually accepted curation of their intellectual input.
I see the ascendancy of what we used to refer to as "the ultraleft," meaning the revolutionary cadre that caviled at nothing to gain power, as fulfilling its purpose. Having been adjacent to them (meaning drawing the line I would not cross at violence or sedition,) I am more familiar with their tactics than most.
i was a publisher of ‘alternative media’ for a few years, and have always sought out indie media b/c i loved it. you can barely find alt media anymore which makes the situation w/Overton so much worse. attempts to silence dissent thru “misinformation” projects is simply the institutionalization of a propaganda regime that should put everyone on notice that things are not okay.
The “problematic” lyrics only go to demonstrate how the US boutique left have not been vocal enough about what are the real reasons why people like Anthony are feeling so left behind. The left should be all over these left behind people and places and giving them the right information as to why it ain’t the obese person on benefits who’s keeping them down, it’s tax dodging billionaires and corporations not paying their fair share and politicians on the payroll of donors. The reason why white working class, poor, are attracted to right-populism is because it’s giving them an explanation for their shitty lives. The fact that it’s the wrong explanation these folks are hearing is the fault of a complete vacuum of left-populist politics in these forgotten towns.
🏆
As someone who leans to the political right, I don't know that I agree with all your insights but I thought it was a very interesting article nonetheless. You're turning out to be one of the more interesting authors in my list of Substack's.
thanks -- that means a lot to me. i just want ppl think for themselves again 💕
These songs have been coming up automatically for me on Rumble past few days. So not only am I watching unapproved naratives I'm listening to unapproved music. Culture is so critical, so much of why blood moves in our veins, which is why CIA works hard to destroy the family in any form - it always leads, they say, to fascism. Art, music, the "counter" culture - all so easily subverted by the love of money. Jesus and Buddha and Krishna and the Prophet - they all have words on that. What's happened last few years to comedians - ouch. George Carlin, we miss you; Bread and Circus soldiers on, but it's nowhere near enough. There's Joe Rogan and Tucker, but one doesn't embody them the way one does music, comedy and art.