Three days after uploading a backyard video performance of his protest anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Anthony read from the book of Psalms before an overflow crowd gathered to hear him sing.
This is how Oliver Anthony opened a free concert on Sunday, 8/13/23 in Currituck, North Carolina:
“The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them,” Anthony said, Bible and guitar in hand. “But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.”
Jason Whitlock (“Fearless”) implores us to pray for Oliver Anthony. A month ago, he fell to his knees and asked God to deliver him from drinking and depression. He cried out for a purpose. It appears God gave him one: speak truth to power.
In just a few days, Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” has racked up millions of views on YouTube, Twitter, and other streaming services.
Rich Men North of Richmond” shot up the iTunes music chart, reaching No.1. The video has nearly 9 million views on a tiny West Virginia radio station YouTube page. In a matter of days, his social media following exploded. He has 425,000 Instagram followers and 300,000 followers on Twitter.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” calls out our nation’s political elite, the politicians in the nation’s capital, just a two-hour drive up I-95 from Richmond, Virginia.
Oliver Anthony is from nowhere, a small farm in Farmville, Virginia. He knows he’s picking a fight with the devil. You wonder if he truly understands all the different ways Satan seduces.
We better pray for Oliver Anthony.
His walk with God is just beginning. By his own admission, he’s been dancing with the devil for much longer. The music industry will offer him the best drugs, alcohol, and women the world has to offer. If that doesn’t work, the industry will loose its puppets in corporate media to comb through every aspect of Anthony’s personal history.
He goes on to explain the meaning and purpose of “Rich Men North of Richmond.” He feels the working class has been forgotten. The song is directed at the political elite on both sides of the Democrat-Republican divide. Anthony believes in the uniparty. He sees himself as neither left-wing nor right-wing. He’s also bothered by the normalization of sexualizing kids.
He sounds like someone who finally realized America’s problems and solutions are spiritual, not political.
Whitlock continues:
“Not by choice or design, he’s the Donald Trump of folk music. Anyone, regardless of color, geography, or economic standing, who speaks or sings on behalf of the average American risks persecution.
The wicked shall plot against Oliver Anthony. Let us pray that his enemies vaporize into smoke as the fat of lambs.”
As this was written a few days ago, here is the latest update on Oliver Anthony:
The big news was Oliver Anthony is his grandfather’s name. The viral sensation is actually named Christopher Anthony Lunsford. He published a long Facebook post this week providing a lot more biographical information, including dismissing any interest in a music contract:
People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers. I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.
Based on his autobiography, the singer seems to be exactly what he advertised, a blue-collar Appalachian struggling to make ends meet. It says a lot about the state of our culture that, despite his economic struggles, he already isn’t interested in what the music industry is peddling.
Wow! Quite a story!
8/19/23