It’s usually a bad sign when someone speaks (or writes) with total confidence, but I’m totally confident you hadn’t heard of country music megastar Oliver Anthony until a couple of weeks ago.
I’m guessing some of you are only discovering him now.
In just two weeks, Anthony (whose real name is Chris Lunsford) went from total obscurity to millions of followers on social media, his debut single, Rich Men North of Richmond (a reference to politicians in Washington D.C.), rocketed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and he was even the subject of a question during last week’s Republican Primary debate.
Anthony’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. And if you listen to the first few lines of his song, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just a simple, Bible Belt-friendly song, about the economic and political frustrations of America:
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ 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.
According to the latest LendingClub report, 61% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. 52% work more than 40 hours a week without getting overtime pay. 49% rely on credit cards to cover essential living expenses. And that’s before we even talk about the cost of living crisis or the decade-long fight for a liveable minimum wage.