A Man with a Guitar & a Message

Have you seen/heard the red-bearded man singing his song, Rich Men North of Richmond yet?

He goes by the name Oliver Anthony online, but his real name is Chris, and he lives in Farmville, VA. He’s not a professional musician, he’s just a man with a guitar and a message.

If you haven’t watched & listened to it yet, please do so now. [WARNING: Contains foul language.]

(Feel free to listen to it again…and again.)

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Here’s mine…

My Reaction

Personally, I was BLOWN AWAY by it. (I heard about it through an email I received last week from John Bush of Live Free Academy and decided to check it out for myself.)

I spent the better half of Saturday watching, and rewatching, this video again & again, tuning into gobs & gobs of first-time reaction videos made on it. (It’s embarrassing to know how much time I spent in front of that boob tube, but I couldn’t pull myself away from it.)

And then again on Sunday, I was drawn back in to check out the stats on the original video. It’s continually rising. I don’t know how accurate those stats are, but this song is clearly resonating with hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.

What is the big deal?

For me, I felt like I was living in a scene from the movie musical, Dear Evan Hansen, when the main character did a speech and the recording of it went viral because it struck such a chord with so many people.

And then, with this Rich Men North of Richmond music video, I had the same reaction as what I experienced after watching Dear Evan Hansen. I was profoundly moved — again & again. Why? Because I care so deeply about people.

This man is real/authentic. He’s a human being speaking from the heart. And people from all walks of life, from every race, religion & nationality are relating to his message.

What Are People Thinking?

For years now, I have been wondering what everyday, average people have been thinking since the craziness began in March of 2020.

Living where & the way I do, isolated from people, especially now that I’ve turned away from social media (namely, Facebook), I’ve been in the dark when it came to knowing what people thought about all that’s going on in the world today.

Sure, I knew people were upset about their particular issues of concern. But really, in their heart of hearts, what did people think about all the crap that’s going on, particularly about the hopelessness of wasting one’s life away in pursuit of the dollar. I wanted to hear people talk about it.

My husband and I have gone back & forth, sharing our frustrations with each other over this subject.

We know the only way to be free is to not need money in order to live. This is one of the reasons why we do what we do.

I’ve known from early on in 2020 that the economy was being systematically destroyed and people were going to suffer like never before as a result.

I could only imagine how difficult it must be for the average Jane & Joe in the working class to make it today in this world. And I cringe at what’s happening to the middle class because I’m afraid they are all being turned into paupers, whether they realize it or not. It’s heartbreaking.

We All Need to Talk to One Another

I pray people will turn to one another for help, particularly to those who have a heart and a brain and a will to make things better for themselves & their families.

I think we all need to talk to one another — and listen to one another, sharing from both the heart & mind. And then, we all need to determine for ourselves what we can personally do about our own situation and figure out how to cooperate with others to make improvements in our respective lives.

I say, thank you, Oliver Anthony, for speaking truth & opening an outlet for people to relate to one another at the heart level. Hopefully many will take a step beyond simply talking about this video and work together to better themselves & the lives of their families.

That’s my reaction.

Please, share yours with me.