Or maybe you still love it, but now you have a different perspective.

  • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Richmen North of Richmond.

    I love the sound, and at first it sounds like a pro worker union song (and it kinda is).

    But there’s way too much dog whistle… An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

    And then he slips in some super disappointing language about fat people on welfare.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

      I think that’s an uncharitable reading. Which is understandable, but still.

      I think that there are a lot of people–myself included–that would like to be able to make a living doing something that seems to matter, or where you make something. Like, factory work sucks in most ways, but it still feels like you’re doing something. Spreadsheets and order projections? Staring at a screen all day, sending polite emails to people you’ll never meet about ways to spend a lot of money electronically?

      This “new world” of work and socializing ain’t great. I think it snuck up on a lot of people, and now a lot of people are feeling like they don’t know how to navigate the new reality of depersonalization.

      • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I agree. Nearly every lyric in that song, when isolated, sounds fine and agreeable. Even when he attacks people on welfare “if you’re 5’- 3 and 300lbs, taxes ought not to pay, for your bags of fudge rounds.” Isn’t wrong.

        Taxes shouldn’t be used by fat cats to get fatter. But he isn’t saying that. He is punching down and attacking a group of people who are suffering in “the new world” just like him, and a fucking bag of cookies is one of the few joys they can still aquire. He could have chosen to attack the elite, even if he only meant the ones to the North. He didn’t.

        “It’s a damn shame, what the world’s gotten to, for people like me, and people like you.”

        Sounds great. Now picture his audience. Who are they, and who are they thinking of when they hear that line?

        This song is called “Richmen North of Richmond.” It’s the Northerner’s fault all these bad things are happening.

        It’s that movie with Rowdy Piper and the glasses. You have to put them on to see the whole message. Dog whistling at its finest.

        If he had made a few small changes it could have been a powerful pro-worker lament and I would be playing it to death. Instead it was #11 on Trump’s “Standing on the stage for 44 minutes swaying back and forth because America is so easy to con so why not?”

        It’s a damn shame.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

      WTF? Don’t be sorry about that!

      I know it’s just sort of a reflexive idiomatic politeness, but still, it is really important to make it absolutely crystal clear how irredeemably contemptible the “lost cause” shit take is, at every opportunity. Never, ever be polite about it!