Country-folk singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony, who wrote the Billboard number one hit song used in the opening of Wednesday night’s first GOP 2024 presidential debate on Fox News is mocking the Republican candidates on stage for embracing it, revealing for the first time the song is “definitely” written about them.
Declaring that “what makes us strong is our diversity,” Anthony says, “it was funny seeing it at the presidential debate, ’cause it’s like, I wrote that song about those people, you know,” he said with a chuckle.
“So for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up,” Anthony added, laughing a bit more. “But it was funny kind of seeing the response to it, like that song has nothing to do with Joe Biden, you know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song’s written about the people on that stage and a lot more too, not just them, but definitely them.”
Fox News opened the debate with clips of Americans complaining about inflation and the cost of living, along with a clip of President Joe Biden saying that his economic plan, dubbed Bidenonmics, is working.
“As we sit here tonight,” Fox News host and debate moderator Martha MacCallum said Wednesday, to cheers and applause from the audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “the number one song on the Billboard chart is called ‘Rich Men North of Richmond,'”
“It is by a singer from FarmVille, Virginia named Oliver Anthony. His lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government, and of this country. Washington, D.C. is about 100 miles north of Richmond,” MacCallum concluded before playing a short portion of the song.
“Why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now? What do you think it means?” she asked.
On Thursday, The Washington Post published a short clip of Fox News using the song during the debate, and after, Oliver Anthony, whose actual name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, talking about himself and his political beliefs.
“We got to go back to the roots of what made this country great in the first place,” Anthony says, “which was our sense of community and our, I mean, we are the melting pot of the world and that’s what makes us strong is our diversity and we need to learn to harness that, appreciate it, and not use it as a political tool to keep everyone separate from each other.”
“I sit pretty down the center on politics, and always have, it seems like you know, both sides serve the same master and that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country,” he added.
Watch the videos of Oliver Anthony above or at this link.