#235 / Songs Of Resentment

 

If you click the YouTube link, above, you should be able to hear Oliver Anthony sing "Rich Men North of Richmond." I have pasted in the lyrics, below, in case you'd like to get an early introduction into what I think I have properly categorized as a "song of resentment." 

I found out about Anthony, and the song, from conservative political commentator, Rod Dreher. I have mentioned Dreher before, and in fact more than once. For a number of years, Dreher wrote a column for The American Conservative. Most recently, Dreher's relationship with The American Conservative has been severed, and Dreher now holds forth in a Substack blog, which he calls, Rod Dreher's Diary. Click that link to see what Dreher has to say about Anthony, a country singer who is "on his way," at least the way Dreher sees it. 

If you click the following link, and read my initial posting about Dreher, you will find that I have had doubtful feelings about Dreher, right from the start. I was commenting, in that earlier blog posting - though I didn't use this language - on Dreher's evident wish to "have it both ways." In my 2017 blog post, I noted how Dreher both wanted to acknowledge his African-American heritage (picking up the credibility that might go along with that) while making clear to everyone that he was on the side of the "white guys." 

Dreher has definitely doubled down on this double-sided approach (or maybe we should call it a "double dealing" approach, politically speaking). Dreher's commentary comes from someone who positions himself as a serious critic of American culture, and the American heritage, and who writes about the political, economic, and social situation in the United States. Dreher is against "woke" in all its forms - maybe even more than Ron DeSantis! Despite the fact that America, and American culture, is "his beat," as it were, Dreher has actually decided to leave the United States behind, so as to establish his personal residence in Hungary, whose authoritarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, is a really great guy, and a really great "political leader," according to Dreher. 

Maybe Dreher actually got "fired" from The American Conservative when he shifted his political allegience to Hungary, who knows? I know that I am a lot less tolerant of Dreher's critricisms of the United States, now that Dreher is dialing them in from his new, autocratic home base. If you would like to see how Wikipedia characterizes Orbán, and Hungary, here's a brief excerpt. I think it's pretty much on target:

Because of Orbán's curtailing of press freedom, erosion of judicial independence, and undermining of multiparty democracy, many political scientists and watchdogs consider Hungary to have experienced democratic backsliding during Orbán's tenure. Orbán's harsh criticism of the policies favored by the European Union while accepting their money and funneling it to his allies and family have also led to accusations that his government is a kleptocracy. His government has also been characterized as an autocracy.

Well, let me return to what got me to sit down and write this blog posting in the first place - and I mean, of course, Oliver Anthony's song. Anthony's song, it seems to me, rather sings to this moment in our political history. I am willing to bet that the song will appear on the program of one or more Trump rallies, in the near future. Anthony, like the dedicated supporters of our former president, is on the side of the "miners," but what's really wrong with the country, the way he sings it, is how the government keeps being concerned with "minors," on an island somewhere. I think the allusion is to the sexually-abused victims of Jeffrey Epstein, on Epstein's private island in the Caribbean, or maybe it's to those asylum seekers (including lots of children) who are fleeing horrific situations in the Middle East, and get stranded on a Greek island. 

At any rate, those "minors" on "an island somewhere," whoever is being referred to, seem to be getting way too much attention, according to Anthony. What about all those "fat," homeless people on the street, eating their "fudge rounds"? Now, there's a real problem, and the government isn't doing a thing about it (at least according to Anthony)!

Based on what I am hearing in Anthony's new song, it appears that things aren't going well for those whom he seeks to represent. I don't sense, though, in Anthony's lyrics, any personal willingness to get involved with politics, or social service work, which is the way that someone might actually be able to do something for the "miners," and for the working folks who are "working overtime hours" and getting "bullshit pay." 

In fact, if you look at what is happening, politically, President Joe Biden seems actually to be trying to do something about the problems that Anthony is singing about (at least some of which are all too real). Those enamored of former president Trump (and I'm betting Anthony is being well-received by them), just want to complain, and to rehearse their resentment, instead of doing the hard work needed to take power, and to change the realities that Anthony's song portrays as so totally unacceptable.

I consider feelings of "resentment" - and "songs of resentment" - to be a "cop out." We live in a nation in which "we, the people," are given the political tools to take over the government and make it do what we think is right. Criticizing the state of the nation, actually, is pretty easy. "Taking responsibility?" Well, that takes work. 

So, let's start doing that. How's that for a plan?

If you want to write, or listen to, or sing "songs of resentment," instead of trying to use your political power to make the changes that ought to be made, Rod Dreher might actually have a good suggestion for you. 

Maybe you, like Mr. Dreher, should move to autocratic Hungary!

oooOOOooo

Rich Men North of Richmond

I've been selling my soul
Working 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
Living in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just want to 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 nothing to eat
And the obese milking 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 putting themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kicking 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
Living in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just want to 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 selling my soul
Working all day
Overtime hours
For bullshit pay

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Image Credit:

https://youtu.be/sqSA-SY5Hro