I missed several rounds of the debate about Oliver Anthony, the singer-songwriter behind “Rich Men North of Richmond.”
I think what surprised me was the level and intensity of the demand. There are lots of country artists who are still singing about normal life, their loving attachment to American places, their family, and their faith. Some artists do it more subtly and accessibly, like Dierks Bentley. Some do it in a more populist way, like Hardy, the country-metal songwriter who wrote Blake Shelton’s hit “God’s Country” a few years ago. I really like Hardy’s own straightforward delivery of it, which you can watch here.
Hardy now takes this song to audiences in Anaheim, or in Madison Square Garden, and introduces it with passionate denunciations of those who run down “the greatest country in the world.” He sings about guns, hunting, partying, God, and death, and tells stories in his songs. He reminds a lot of people of Kid Rock for his taste in mixing country with heavy metal.
And of course, there are all sorts of artists whose idiosyncratic politics still occasionally match up with my own sentiments. The great folk artist Greg Brown sings traditional songs — little comedies. He’d probably be scandalized to be praised in a publication like National Review, but he sings about the same longings I’ve felt throughout my life:
I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall
and I cried out in a song:
If we could do all that in thirty years, please tell me you all
Why does good change take so long?
He sings it in “The Poet Game,” a song I now realize is itself 30 years old.
All this to say: There are a lot of country and folk artists who are celebrating our way of life, or trying to just tell true stories. They aren’t political hacks, and they’re not interested in becoming ones, either. I worry that the mania conservatives expressed for Oliver Anthony is evidence we’ve lost the ability to pan for gold in this culture.