If he’d only written the first verse, I might believe it.
Exactly. Don’t be complaining about people on social services and then be surprised when your comments are being held up by other bigots.
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Tons of downvotes but no responses. Curious.
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I just watched a video on the controversy and people seems to have three criticisms (only one of which I agree with)
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- It dog whistles right-wing conspiracy theories about underground pedo rings
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- The emphasis on rich men north of Richman is to evoke the north vs south Confederacy era grievances
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- He criticizes people on welfare
The first two seem to have more charitable explanations behind the artist’s meaning. There really was a pedo ring on Jeffery Epstein’s Island. And most people who hear the song aren’t thinking about north vs south, theyre thinking about the rich men in Washington DC.
That said, I don’t like his criticism of welfare and that’s a common right wing talking point that doesn’t even fit in the song thematically.
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Exactly! It starts out alright and then just nose dives into a pool of bullshit. He knows exactly what he was trying to say when writing it.
Watch him come out with a song placating to the left with medicare for all and climate change next.
I don’t listen to country: can someone say what he said that’s so controversial?
The song is about politicians sucking. There is one part where he trashes people on welfare as well. Overall the song is pretty good with the exception of the welfare comment.
He called out Epstein and now people who vote democrat are mad as hell because if they just work hard enough, maybe next year they might get to go to Epstein’s Island 2, electric boogaloo.
SLAMMED! Feels like most headlines are written by 12 year olds these days
It makes it easy to know which articles I don’t need to bother reading
It’s felt that way for a decade
It’s subliminal marketing for a yet to be filmed Space Jam 3.
Space Jam 3: come on and SLAM
You wanna know why? Cuz slam jam!
Space jam 3 but there hasn’t even been a space jam 2 yet
I find it odd that that singer doesn’t understand his fan-base.
Yeah, it seems a bit strange. At least he’s not a grifter (yet). Or, maybe he’s just really bad at grifting.
His politics and messaging is inconsistent. He’s got Reagan-era tax and welfare talking points mixed in with qanon pedophile conspiracy lines. Then makes a video where it sounds like he thinks he’s a centrist. I guess the Overton window really has shifted, lol.
It’s not hard to imagine how someone within the conservative cesspit would end up with a worldview that’s a complete mess.
It takes education that not everybody has access to to see through the junk science of neoliberalism, transphobia, climate denial and anti-vax. It takes context that not everybody is exposed to to realise that friends and family who have always been good to you, may not actually be good people.
I have a small amount of sympathy for him. His life and feelings were being used to push a far-right agenda that he’s clearly not comfortable with, making him the latest target of abuse. He’s got more in common with the LGBT community than he might want to admit.
But my sympathy dries up quickly. He holds views that are deeply damaging to society and didn’t seem to have a problem when it was other people on the receiving end.
If he can learn from this and shake off his other shitty views, I’d have some respect for him but until then the enemy of my enemy isn’t inherently my friend.
He holds views that are deeply damaging to society and didn’t seem to have a problem when it was other people on the receiving end.
What views? Everyone in this thread is being super vague
He’s just another rube being exploited by the right wing media cycle.
qanon pedophile conspiracy lines?
dude. jeffrey epstien had a private island where they raped children. that’s not a conspiracy, that’s what happened.
And to Oliver, the reason Epstein was rich and able to molest children is because he’s a Jewish queer.
well that’s not in this song, I know nothing about this dude, so link?
Oh that part’s not in the song, that’s in his social media. He has a playlist on his channel that suggests the Jews did 9/11. There’s also other small hints, when he says the rich men north of Richmond have Masters, he’s talking about the Jews.
welp, that figures. this is why every time I drive through west virginia, I skip the toll booths and gas stations. I refuse to subsidize republicans
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Was bizarre to me that the first NPR story on this song focused on the line referencing Epstein being a far right conspiracy. Everyone I’ve interacted with thinks everyone photographed with him or Ghislaine partakes.
I heard that too! I had to pause the podcast. Usually NPR politics is somewhat fair, but that seemed like a stretch
yeah, between that and how they talked about Bernie Sanders during the primaries of 2020 and 2016, I no longer am a sustainer.
Because it is. People on the left Etc generally want to see anyone who was involved with his sex trafficking to see justice. But we don’t automatically accuse people we don’t like of being in League with some evil pedophile jew. That is a specifically right-wing/nazi conspiracy theory. Combine that with the ridiculous yet prevalent Theory among some on the Republican / conservative side. That Democrats are abducting children to drain them of their blood for the adrenachrome so they can stay young. You couldn’t hardly get more late Weimar Republic / Nazi if you tried.
I don’t find it a stretch at all to believe that a lot of people who were ever in a photo with Epstein or maxwell. Didn’t really understand what they were doing or what was going on. Do you know the intimate details of everyone who’s ever been to a party that you’ve been at? I doubt it. That said anyone for whom there’s a credible accusation or evidence. Should be fully investigated.
But this associating of people you don’t like with Epstein definitely is a far right Republican trope. And a bad one at that. Because their people are often more easily associable than anyone else. I mean we have video of trump bragging about how he “likes them young” for christ’s sake. Sure Bill flew on his plane without Epstein on board. And he and Hillary both had been in pictures with them at different parties from time to time. But I never saw him hanging out with Epstein on purpose bragging about how he likes them young.
Just because something happened doesn’t mean that there was no conspiracy. And in this case, the conspiracy wasn’t about him having done that. But this need of conservatives and Republicans to associate everyone they don’t like with him.
It’s blood-libel 2.0
I don’t listen to country: can someone say what he said that’s so controversial? As I understand he was making illusions to Jeffery Epstein who is a confirmed pedo
His politics amount to Jews running the world and queers being child molesters so don’t expect much in the way of critical thinking.
The disgust makes sense when it’s Rage Against the Machine and conservatives but homey apparently hasn’t looked at mainstream country in the past 30+ years because it ain’t “Folsom Prison Blues” anymore its “I Love America And My Ford Truck (Unless Ford Goes Woke)”
You know how deliberately engineered, autotuned pop music and its popularity doesn’t really represent real music? Same goes for “country”. All of those carbon copy songs about ford trucks and beer in the bed of ma pickup chucklefucks doesn’t represent the real music being made in and adjacent to that genre. Much like pop, it’s music for idiots. It moves volume in America because of the size of that audience.
I listened to the song with no knowledge that Republicans were using it as a dog-whistle; I immediately thought it was written about rich conservatives, then I found out the dumbfucks had adopted it as their own.
I can see why he’s pissed off.
I’m not the target audience, so maybe that explains why, but I don’t hear any whistling in the song.
Why would you expect someone to understand a group of people just because they like a song they made? Art being misinterpreted, or interpreted in a way the artist never intended, is the oldest story in the book. Long story short it’s not at all “odd that the singer doesn’t understand his fanbase”.
Maybe it’s not his “fan base” that he doesn’t understand, but rather than annoying 10% butt-hurts that always cause trouble.
I mean I don’t have any fans and I don’t understand because I’m actually pretty cool.
Everyone just keeps saying I haven’t met the right group yet but like there aren’t too many groups left.
Ignoring the whole welfare lyric for a moment, I think this experience ended up being a hard lesson for this young songwriter.
To borrow a line from Bluey - “…when you put something beautiful out into the world, it’s no longer yours, really.”
I would absolutely fucking love the song if not for that line. I swear I would.
Who knows what his experiences are. Even working at a grocery store, you don’t remember most of the people using EBT. You remember a lady buying only high end meat with the card and getting into an Escalade.
I think fraud is just one of the costs of helping peeps, but I understand how frustrating it can be to have to watch your spending and witness that. Confirmation bias takes over and you don’t remember the poor people buying staples.
People need to remember that this guy did not have a lot of success before this song. It’s a breakout hit from an unknown artist
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Everyone heard him when he said who he was.
This is just him saying that he wants to sell another single in the future.
This song is honestly amazing with Dale Gribble AI vocals. It feels like it was from a parallel universe where King Of The Hill never stopped making episodes.
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The lyrics could have been written by an AI it’s so generic.
I disagree. I think it’s clever. I’m a hillbilly who doesn’t live far from this guy so I may have a little bias.
I just wish like hell he hadn’t included that horrible line about poor folks. He’s off the mark about who his enemy is.
I was too at one point. I was so burned out dealing with those people. Where I’m from that’s all you see. You have people who work every day or you have huge people riding around on mobility scooters with skinny half starved children begging for a bag of peanuts. When that is your experience day in and day out and you haven’t yet had the opportunity to learn why that is, you just get angry at what you see.
I hope he comes to understand the source of those problems and directs his anger at the right people.
He could end up being the protest singer that we need in Appalachia to offer a decent perspective.
When I was younger I wrote an entire mini book on how much hatred I had for the junkies in my community. It would embarrass me right into my grave if I had to read it today. I ended up falling into the trap myself and then I realized it wasn’t a choice they were making. Once I realized that my people had been intentionally poisoned and lied to so some jackass wearing a suit worth more than our houses could grow his bank account, I was furious with myself for what I had believed earlier.
I hope this dude gets some truth and brings more people around.
Sorry if this is a jumbled mess. Trying to type it out at work and keep my train of thought is a terribly difficult thing to do.
Thanks for your perspective. I come from a completely different background but also started conservative and became more left leaning as I learned more about history and economics and social science etc. as well as years of gaining lots of real world experience caring for all kinds of different people. Like you said, it’s not really their choice. Nobody wants to grow up to be on welfare or a drug addict. Of course there is some personal agency but it’s far more complex than what this song and the popular narrative make it out to be.
Unfortunately my parents, many of my coworkers, and of course the entire Republican party still buy into that caricature of evil poor people choosing to steal from the rest of us hard working patriots but it’s easy to forget that they too are brainwashed. I appreciate your reminder to be kind and understanding above all and hopefully we can raise everyone’s collective level of understanding, empathy, and care instead of deepening divides.
Ootl… Who is this red head of the woods and what did they do?
Tldr: some no name dude wrote a country song. One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients. Conservative hogs lose their mind and his song hits top charts. He comes out backpedaling and claiming we all “interpretted the lyrics wrong” and welfare recipients are victims not leeches. Now everyone is confused.
Can’t forget the part where his personal YouTube channel also has an extensive watch list (“videos to make your noggin’ bigger” or something similar) full of full-on anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Such as Jews secretly orchestrating 9/11.
This is an important detail of which I was unaware. I was almost gonna credit him for snubbing his nose at privileged politicians, but now I can write him off again.
Got a link to that?
ETA: never mind I was having a hard time finding reference to that but then I found this article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/rich-men-north-richmond-viral-conservative-anthem-rcna99698
this definitely feeds into my thoughts on who he thinks the “rich men” are
Ohhh. This is the dude who performs the song my coworker was all but having orgasms over yesterday and was trying to make me listen to - “the lyrics are amazing, just listen to them!” She already thinks she’s magnetic from a hepatitis vaccine, and this morning informed me that the moon landing was a hoax, so I think I made the right call in utterly ignoring her and her stupid song.
Oh no… This is just sad. They need a friend and a hobby.
She is a product of her environment. She is also nearly 50.
This guy is also a product of his environment and it seems like his heart is in the right place. That one throw off line really doesn’t seem that bad and I really don’t understand the hate this guy is getting. The left(which i consider myself patt of but damn) needs to do some real self examination if this is who they’re demonizing, over a couple unfortunate words. Like bro is trying obviously. He could’ve easily just pondered to those conservative fuckheads and gotten stupid amounts of mypillow money or something, but he’s making public statements against those people.
“the lyrics are amazing, just listen to them!”
It’s got good wordplay and flow but the content is confused and under informed
The song title rich men north of Richmond is also likely a dog whistle for other crappy bigots like this idiot.
What’s the dog whistle? Washington DC is north of Richmond VA.
Richmond was one of the northernmost slave owning towns during the civil war.
Interesting. Thank you for the context
I think a lot of people get way too uptight over nonsense that is actually bait.
Ah okay I was confused why people were hating on this guy. Before I knew that it sounded like “The machine is wondering why rage against the machine hates them for liking their music again.”
One of the lyrics shits on welfare recipients.
There’s no way he chose Richmond for any reason other than being the CSA’s capital city.
There’s no way he chose Richmond for any reason other than being the CSA’s capital city.
I don’t know anything about this guy or this song, but I think it’s more likely he chose it because Richmond sounds like rich men.
I feel like a lot of people are weirdly jumping to conclusions and trying to make up detailed conspiracy theories. Could it possibly be that DC is north of Richmond, and “rich men” sounds like Richmond?
Could it possibly be that DC is north of Richmond, and “rich men” sounds like Richmond?
I mean if you want to pander to people who are still upset that DC took away their slaves and who would prefer that they could call Richmond their capital, and all you had to do to get people to defend you for that choice was to toss in an awkward half-rhyme, why wouldn’t you?
Just to be clear, this isn’t the guy who made “try that in a small town” which was another meme of a song lately.
If I cared, it would be fun watching this guy pick his lane. But I don’t.
Beau has a good breakdown here:
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I wish Beau was more concise, it’s painful to hear him meander through a topic with no planning
I said most of what I wanna say yesterday
Great comment, thanks for linking it. Unfortunately it seems like the sides have been “set” and we have to hate him now or we’re literally Nazis. Your phrase “wholesomely uneducated” seems a bit condescending but tbh I can’t think of a better way to phrase it. I met 100 of him when I lived in TN. Genuinely good people who were victims of misinformation and
secularismsocial insularism.Yeah, I mean I wanted to be nice because he is passionate and something tells me his heart is in the right place, even if that lyric is misguided af.
I talked about this a lot yesterday.
I’ve watched a few of his non music videos to see if I sniff it out and I don’t catch a bad vibe from him beyond that lyric.
I think the general issue with Conservatism as a modern ideology is that it only spreads through uneducated crowds. We can’t blame people for the bad education they got.
He talks about the pure joy he’s getting out of people enjoying his content. He even deliberately tried to deliver a message of inclusivity to ward off the conservative crowd from making him their mascot.
Getting overnight fame is hard and I hope he handles it well and in a way that enables him to share his talents for good.
Edit: he seems genuine to me, idk.
He didn’t say these things to a million people. He said it to his cell phone camera in his back yard. It wasn’t ironed out, nuanced, it was just kinda… Wholesomely uneducated.
But the important thing is that overnight success is hard. The devil is tempting this kid left and right, no doubt. He is telling folks off for misappropriating his message, and saying no to big money.
Hopefully this amount of public scrutiny cleans up his message and doesn’t dull his passion. It’s a delicate balance. Idk. It’s a good song, and I’m a northern liberal metal head who kinda hates country.
The fact that everyone ignore that “that line” is proceeded by a call for politicians to address the homelessness crisis and followed by lyrics about how workers are being exploited and lied to by rich southern coal mine owners should tell you all there is to know about the main message of the song.
I genuinely feel sorry for him for releasing a song in criticism the state governments of the south and getting “picked up” specifically by those people whom he hates because of one stupid, naive lyric.
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victims of misinformation and secularism.
What’s a victim of secularism? How can you be a victim of not bringing religion into a discussion?
Whoops got my vocabulary wrong. Meant insularism. Southern culture specifically encourages social isolation and a toxic self-reliance attitude in men. It promotes an ideology of “everyone who isn’t like me is wrong” and “ill never ask for help or ask for someone to teach me a new thing” which, coupled with the most gutted public education in the country, pushes many right into the arms of the RNC who tell them exactly what they want to hear. I saw it happen to many of my childhood friends, family, and even myself for a short time.
To play devil’s advocate
A lot of DeSantis but jobs would probably believe deep in their souls that Disney is “victim of secularism”.
devil’s advocate
i don’t think trump’s lawyer would be supporting desantis
I don’t think he understands who is listening to him now.
It’s wild that people are so mad about the fudge rounds line. Poor people are often forced into situations where they eat unhealthy foods. Why should food aid programs help fund American obesity rather than tackle it? Is that not the same as declaring tomatoes a vegetable so we can keep serving pizza to to schoolkids?
Oddly I’m not bothered by that line so much. I’m more disappointed with the title and the chorus. Richmond, being the capital of Virginia was a border state of the Civil War. Yes technically Washington DC is very much north of Richmond, but I think the song resonates more with a certain crowd due to the former reason vs the latter.
The song could have been better IMO if it targeted LOCAL governments by state, instead of trying to blame Rich Men North of Richmond. As if Rich Men South of Richmond wasn’t a thing…
Also the line about “I wish they’d care more about miners than minors” is a right wing, qanon reference to Epstein’s victims. Basically saying that he wishes they’d protect coal country jobs over protecting kids from being sex trafficked.
In other songs he’s basically flaking for the qanon nutters.
I heard that line as “hey rich people stop fucking kids” as Epstein & the other networks are constantly connected to right wingers
“Minors on an island” is a qanon reference to Epstein and sex trafficking, as part of the satanic cabal that conspired to… whatever… trump.
In other songs, he’s referencing other things- all of them code phrases used by qanon to talk about their whackadoodle theories without tripping algos to squash the disinformation.
It’s entirely possible that he doesn’t understand that- but it’s also entirely possible I’m a sentient turnip speaking to you from the future.
Further the way the song went viral is… not an accident. Somebody… made it go viral, gaming algos in a way to land it on billboard’s top songs list. Something is not what it seems. It might be that he’s totally just freaking clueless- but I really really doubt it.
This is quite a cynical take.
I assumed he was calling out pedophiles.
Also it seems like he came out against the Republican take on his line about welfare recipients. Which seems like it would go against the idea of him being some qanon deep cover plant.
His audience OTOH is maybe a different story.
I wish politicians would look out for miners And not just minors on an island somewhere Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat…
I’m not being cynical at all. I’m just not twisting his words: that’s the exact quote of verse two’s start.
He’s not calling out pedos. He’s calling government out for “caring more” about epstein’s child sec trafficking than about coal miners. And let’s be honest- most of the economic woes of coal country are from clinging to an industry that’s been dying for the last 2 decades.
Further, the line “minors on an island” is a qanon reference. He makes other wanton references in other songs. Enough to the extent that it is difficult to not assume he’s qanon. Most people would have just directly called out Epstein, right?
Yes qanonists tried to spin the actual right winger Epstein’s & the other group’s sex trafficking, child sexual abuse etc to be a progressive conspiracy or something.
Until Ron Watkins became known
But yes it’s hard to know which the singer meant
i’m not buying it. Sure he could be a confederate apologist but if you are writing a song about some rich old dudes in DC screwing the rest of us over its some hard rhymes. When I heard the song he pronounced the word “rich men” and “richmond” nearly identically. I was like what does “rich men north of rich men” mean, then later I heard “richmond north of richmond”
Looking at the lyrics he was complaining that we have people in the streets with no food to eat while there are obese people getting fat on welfare. Sounds like he thinks government is incompetent.
I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
*Something, something can’t give money to poor people. Something, something, give money to rich people. *
The bullshit argument that is all about hating and punishing poor people. With nice extra boot lick the rich.
Yeah I heard that argument from the “right” and “left” yeah people would gamble all their money away then what.
Its basic income, if you want more go produce something. But we should treat people like adults and stop treating them like children.
Sure but I doubt whoever wrote this aong actually intended for the listener to have a reasonable takeaway.
I don’t think Virginia was technically a border state in the civil war? MD. WV, and KY were southern states blanketing Virginia. When the government moved through Baltimore, didn’t they have to point federal hill and Fort McHenry cannons at Baltimore to stop the city from rioting against the government army?
WV and MD were both Northern states in the Civil War. Virginia borders them and was the northern border of The Confederacy.
Edit to add: National Geographic article with a map showing the border. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/union-confederacy/
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Deciding what food people get to eat with their food assistance money is disturbingly authoritarian.
Deciding what food people get to buy would be a bad solution to that problem anyways
Working to have healthy options be more affordable and available seems like it’d help and it doesn’t seem disturbingly authoritarian
Can you imagine living in a world where American farm subsidies went to make fresh fruit and produce affordable to all income levels, but the fuel lobby had to pay top dollar if they want to distill corn into ethanol so they can dope our gasoline?
Food assistance is already regulated. No hot food, no pet food, no vitamins, no beer or wine, etc
So now add ‘no sugar’ to that? Look, I don’t like that there’s an obesity epidemic, but that’s basically telling poor people they can’t enjoy food they like. I don’t think that is the right way to help people.
I’m not saying we should or that it is.
I was just pointing out that food assistance is already regulated based on there being some things people may enjoy or want that the government has determined they can not use that assistance to purchase.
Largely, it would seem, based on the fact that those things bad for them (alcohol), that it’s not an efficient use of funds (hot food; any food intended to be eaten on premises), or it’s not actually caloric in any way (vitamins).
Are people mad or is media saying people are mad and then people are agreeing with media.
I often find now that media creates a bunch of controversy on behalf of artists or comedian’s were no shits were given. But like a “man on the street” bit, when confronted by a view like “the song calls people fat” then people who never gave two shits might say this things like " that’s kind of shitty" so it becomes a self fulfilling thing all to drum up sales of some new edgy thing. Songs good though. Been on my playlist on repeat
I have no idea if the media is saying people are mad, the only place I’ve seen angry comments is here on Lemmy. Fair point though, if it’s happening elsewhere it could be media controversy.
I actually don’t see a lot of it in the media. I do see a lot of it in terminally online and too-plugged-in places like Twitter, here, Reddit, Mastodon, and political YT.
I’m bothered by it because he’s just repeating Raegan. At least try to convince me you’re a populist, come on.
I think it’s just as much that it’s good stamps buying the junk food. The point is he’s mad poor people are making a poor choice. I don’t really see any sympathy for the fudge round eater.
“Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for our bags of fudge rounds.”
The implication is that if to pay for your own food, be as fat as you can, but if you are poor you better act how other people think you should act.
The point seems to be less that poor people are making a poor choice, and more that his money is being used to facilitate that poor choice.
People often have the idea that “it’s my money being taxed, why shouldn’t I have a say?” And I can at least sympathize with that.
People often have the idea that “it’s my money being taxed, why shouldn’t I have a say?”
Then why isn’t he complaining about the U.S. military-industrial complex rather than what a tiny percentage of the tax dollar is spent on?
It seems to me that paying for killing brown people is a lot worse than paying for fudge rounds for fat Americans.
I can’t.
It is mystifying. The WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) assistance program has nutrition requirements like only healthier foods and certain brands/ingredients allowed. Yet while it’s OK to dictate to pregnant women and new mothers what they are permitted to eat on an assistance program, some people feel it is not all right for the other welfare programs. Always feels like we just csnnot have nutrition requirements for food programs if men use them.
His statement doesnt make sense. He needs to own up to what he made.
Seems like a cool guy
Even if you give him full benefit of the doubt, the fact the right could adopt this as an anthem against his intentions shows how milquetoast the song is, and how he’s failed to communicate the meaning he wants the song to have.
They adopted Fortunate Son too, and that one’s obviously not for them
This 100%
As well as “Born in the USA”
Fortunate Son is definitely anti-war in context but I’d say it suffers the same vagueness, the lyrics are more about solidarity with soldiers and against preferential treatment for politician’s soldiers, which are moral causes often appealed to by the right. They’ve also had their own “complicated relationship” with displaying the confederate flag which also adds to this. Other anti-Vietnam war songs like “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” are a lot more radical anti-war sentiments, one reason why Fortunate Son is so ubiquitous is because it is vague enough and allows people to impart meaning on it just enough.
Another interesting song that toes this line is “The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down” which is a character piece of a confederate solder at the end of the civil war, with the chorus in major key it suggests an anti-war sentiment but people have also confused it for southern nostalgia.
Should a song be direct or vague? If you want to communicate a specific message like Oliver Antony and get upset when it’s misinterpreted then yes, in CCR and The Band’s case it’s about expressing an emotion or painting a scene. However so many of the classic working class songs like “Which Side Are you On” cannot be misunderstood because they directly pose the political question. One of Dylan’s biggest criticisms from the left at the time was his vague lyrics, vs folk singers like Seeger and Ochs were directly addressing heavy political subjects in their lyrics.
