Oliver Anthony Is Back With “I Want To Go Home”
By the time you see this it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the latest single from Oliver Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford but uses Oliver Anthony as a stage name in honor of his grandfather, shooting up the charts to join his other breakthrough recording, “Rich Men Nortth of Richmond.”
“I Want To Go Home” is similar to “Rich Men;” musically, all of Anthony’s songs are, if we’re being honest. It’s just Anthony and his resonator guitar, with very basic folk-country melodies, and the power of his music comes in the grit of his voice and the raw energy of the lyrics.
These are protest songs. They’re anthems for the traditional America our elites disparage daily. And that Anthony, with no institutional support from the record industry or resources to speak of, has blown up onto the pop-culture scene simply by posting a few music videos on YouTube, is a testament to just how much power those anthems hold.
There are scores of millions of Americans who are utterly disgusted with the state of the country, with the over-the-top cost of living, with the growing dysfunction and failure of our institutions, with the lack of community spirit on the part of those who have the means to make their communities better, with the disparagement of our cultural and historical patrimony and traditions. Anthony speaks to all of it from the perspective of someone who’s been marginalized – and despite his relative inexperience as a musician; he’s only been doing this for a couple of years, he’s finding amazing success with these songs simply going viral on the internet.
Just read the lyrics to “I Want To Go Home” and you’ll understand it. Just about all of us can relate to this on some level…
If it weren’t for my old dogs and the good Lord
They’d have me strung up in the psych ward
‘Cause every day living in this new world
Is one too many days to me
Son, we’re on the brink of the next World War
And I don’t think nobody’s praying no more
And I ain’t saying I know it for sure
I’m just down on my knees begging the Lord take me homeI wanna go home
I don’t know which road to go
It’s been so long
I just know I didn’t used to wake up feeling this way
Cussing myself every damn day
There’s always some kind of bill to pay
People just doing what the rich man say
I wanna go homeFour generations farmin’ the ground
Grandson sells to a man out of town
Two weeks later the trees go down
Only got concrete throwin’ aroundI wanna go home
I wanna go home
I don’t know which road to go
It’s been so long
I just know I didn’t used to wake up feeling this way
Cussing myself every damn day
People have really gone and lost their way
They all just do what the TV say
I wanna go homeIf it weren’t for my old dogs and the good Lord
They’d have me strung up in the psych ward
It’s a great song. All of these are. And they fit the moment like nothing we’ve ever seen.
