Other recent examples include Jason Aldean's country hit Try That In A Small Town, with a video that had images of violence and Black Lives Matter protests, and lyrics that suggest 'good old boy' Americans can maintain law themselves. Rich Men North of Richmond is the latest in a series of controversial cultural flashpoints that highlight the ties between pop culture and the strongly divided US political landscape. Since the viral success of his track, he has not been giving interviews and did not respond to a request from BBC Culture for comment. However, in a video posted the day before Rich Men dropped, Anthony said: 'I sit pretty dead centre on politics'. Whatever the genuine musical appeal of Anthony's song, it broke into the news and the culture in part because of its strong political message. On the left, Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy posted that 'progressives should listen to this', and that the issues Anthony was highlighting were 'all problems the left has better solutions to than the right'. NBC News picked up the story on its website and called it a 'conservative anthem'. Kari Lake, the Trump-backed Republican who ran for governor of Arizona, said it was 'the anthem of this moment in American history'.

Among others, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called the song 'the anthem of the forgotten Americans'. Within days, right-wing politicians were championing the song, which neatly fits some conservative narratives, criticising government overtaxing and those on welfare. It wasn't just the working-class 'you' he was addressing who paid attention though. The erotic drama too hot for the US censors 'It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to/ For people like me and people like you.' 'I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay,' he sings. In the roughly produced video, Anthony, a burly guy with a big red beard and a guitar, stands in a wooded area, looking and sounding like an everyday blue-collar worker. Last week, Anthony's song Rich Men North of Richmond, which criticises Washington and big government, dropped on a West Virginia radio station's YouTube channel and the unknown singer-songwriter became a viral sensation with more than two million views over two days and more than 20 million so far. In the culture wars that continue to divide US politics, the right wing may have found its latest hero in Oliver Anthony, whether he likes it or not.

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