Music & Musicians

‘Rich Men North of Richmond' songwriter says it's no conservative anthem

"I wrote that about those people," Oliver Anthony said of GOP presidential hopefuls in a YouTube video response to his song being mentioned at Wednesday's debate.

Oliver Anthony at the Oliver Anthony concert at the Eagle Creek Golf Club on August 19, 2023 in Moyock, North Carolina.
Mike Caudill for Billbaord/Billboard via Getty Images

The breakout country singer whose hit song "Rich Men North of Richmond" worked its way into the first Republican presidential primary debate dropped a bomb Friday on the people who have been promoting it as a conservative anthem.

"It was funny seeing my song ... at the presidential debate," Oliver Anthony said in a video he made sitting in the cab of his truck that he posted on his official YouTube channel. "Because I wrote that song about those people."

Anthony delivered the video broadside after the first GOP debate opened Wednesday with a shoutout to Anthony's song, a folksy lament topping the charts about the frustrations of a working-class person who toils for low wages and sees his meager earnings eaten up by taxes.

“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news trying to identify with me like I’m one of them,” Anthony said.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

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