... and not just because it mentions my piece on Oliver Anthony -- from David Yearsley in CounterPunch. Money line:
Anthony claims that he’s just “an idiot with a guitar.” He’s not. His music unleashes that most dangerous of all forces: authenticity.
It does bring up something I've been wanting to mention, and to mention in the same vein as that quote above:
This week the English singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg generously provided his own song in answer to the anger of Anthony’s “Rich Men.” Bragg took Anthony to task for directing his resentment at unfortunate folks rather than the billionaires of his song’s title.
I just don't see how Billy Bragg gets to lecture Oliver Anthony on "working class" values.
Billy Bragg sings about the working class, but his main connection to it seems to be that he did some odd jobs while trying to make it as a musician.
Oliver Anthony is the working class -- and "the unfortunate folk" Bragg speaks of. He got his skull fractured while working in a factory. Hard to get more authentically "working class" or "unfortunate" than that.
Far from "resenting" the "unfortunate folks," Anthony seems to regard them as victims of domination/manipulation by those "rich men north of Richmond." He's really on the same "class struggle" page as Bragg. But he recognizes a tragic agency on the part of those people, his people, instead of just using them as props.
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