The Return of Country Protest Songs—Sincere Concerns, Twangy Guitars, Southern Accents

This is Populist Outrage and no matter your preference in music this song and recent others speak specifically what We the People are feeling.

Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond has grabbed the attention of angry America and it did this with exactly the right amount of anti-elite, anti-tax, anti-welfare lyrics—as well as his undeniable singing talent.

Even more remarkable, Anthony’s tune bumped the similarly earnest anti-urban Try That in a Small Town by Jason Aldean from the top of the charts. If you add in Austin Moody’s lefty-taunting chart-climber, I’m Just Sayin’, you have a cluster of songs grabbing popularity with a shared sense of populist outrage. Call it the return of the country protest song.

These songs represent the long-standing tension that exists between rural areas and small towns on the one hand, and denser urban and suburban communities on the other.

Buck Owens wasn’t exactly breaking new ground when he sang I Wouldn’t Live in New York City over half a century ago. Forty years ago, Hank Williams Jr.’s A Country Boy Can Survive came pretty close to the tone of the trio of songs getting listened to this summer. But that tune was more of a rejection of city life and an expression of pride in what the singer (and his audience) considered a better way of life in the country where people “catch catfish from dusk ’til dawn.”

By comparison to their predecessors, the recent songs bare more teeth and bristle at perceived threats from elsewhere.

Anthony calls out:

These rich men north of Richmond, lord knows they just wanna 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.

Similarly in Try That in a Small Town Aldean taunts:

Got a gun that my granddad gave me, they say one day they’re gonna round up.

Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck.

In I’m Just Sayin’, Moody’s sentiments are equally defiant. They may be the most libertarian in tone:

I believe in live and let live, we’re all free to each their own.

If you were born a he, but wanna be a she, do your thing but leave my kids alone.

All three songs are explicitly political, in opposition to what the artists see as intrusive, smug, urban elites who want to dictate terms to the unwilling.

By any reasonable definition, they are protest songs from a long tradition of similar music.

That’s especially true if you consider that country music is just folk music for the righties (and folk music is country music for lefties).

Music critics don’t want to put Aldean, Anthony, and Moody in the same tradition as Woody Guthrie because times have changed. Name-brand media types overwhelmingly like today’s elite establishment, and the protest songs come from a different direction than Guthrie’s socialism. Keep in mind, not approving of a protest does not mean it’s not a protest.

Times have changed, but the gap between rural and urban, populists and elites, remains. Americans have been self-sorting for decades along lines of preferred lifestyle and the politics with which they correlate.

NPR noted last year a decade and a half after Bill Bishop literally wrote the book on the phenomenon— “People appear to be sorting”:

America is growing more geographically polarized—red ZIP codes are getting redder and blue ZIP codes are becoming bluer.

Populist country songs attacking elites necessarily sound like they’re coming from the right because the elites of today are largely on the left. And the divide between right and left is wide and growing.

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote in 2021 for The New York Times:

[The political turmoil of recent years] has consolidated progressive norms in almost every institution susceptible to pressure from activists (or activist-employees), and it’s pulled the entire American establishment leftward.

And it’s no secret that America’s political tribes are divided not just by their views, but by hostility—even to the point of violence.

According to Reuters:

America is grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s.

It’s not a surprise to find this particular moment producing protest songs. And the fact that these songs are finding large audiences is an indication that they tap into popular sentiment.

The work of Oliver Anthony, Jason Aldean, and Austin Moody represents a new round of protest and populist outrage. Theirs are songs expressing the sincere concerns of their creators and their listeners.

This is Populist Outrage and no matter your preference in music this song and recent others speak specifically what We the People are feeling.

Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond has grabbed the attention of angry America and it did this with exactly the right amount of anti-elite, anti-tax, anti-welfare lyrics—as well as his undeniable singing talent.

These songs represent the long-standing tension that exists between rural areas and small towns on the one hand, and denser urban and suburban communities on the other.

By comparison to their predecessors, the recent songs bare more teeth and bristle at perceived threats from elsewhere.

Anthony calls out:

Similarly in Try That in a Small Town Aldean taunts:

In I’m Just Sayin’, Moody’s sentiments are equally defiant. They may be the most libertarian in tone:

All three songs are explicitly political, in opposition to what the artists see as intrusive, smug, urban elites who want to dictate terms to the unwilling.

Times have changed, but the gap between rural and urban, populists and elites, remains. Americans have been self-sorting for decades along lines of preferred lifestyle and the politics with which they correlate.

NPR noted last year a decade and a half after Bill Bishop literally wrote the book on the phenomenon— “People appear to be sorting”:

Populist country songs attacking elites necessarily sound like they’re coming from the right because the elites of today are largely on the left. And the divide between right and left is wide and growing.

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote in 2021 for The New York Times:

And it’s no secret that America’s political tribes are divided not just by their views, but by hostility—even to the point of violence.

According to Reuters:

It’s not a surprise to find this particular moment producing protest songs. And the fact that these songs are finding large audiences is an indication that they tap into popular sentiment.

The work of Oliver Anthony, Jason Aldean, and Austin Moody represents a new round of protest and populist outrage. Theirs are songs expressing the sincere concerns of their creators and their listeners.

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