Oliver Anthony drops new song ‘I want to go home’ amid viral success

Formerly unknown musician Oliver Anthony — whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford — has released a new song following the overnight success of “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

The song, entitled “I Want To Go Home,” centers around the “brink of war” with lyrics such as: “We’re on the brink of the next World War and I don’t think nobody’s praying no more” and “Every damn day is always some kind of bill to pay, people just doing what the rich man say.”

The music video ends with a Bible verse written in text. It reads, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

“Rich Men North of Richmond” has rocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart — thrusting a songwriter from Appalachia who insists he’s “nothing special” onto the national stage.

Self-released on Aug. 11, Anthony’s “Rich Men” is a country-folk tune about a man who sells his soul “workin’ all day,” while struggling under the weight of inflation, high taxes and so-called elitism, sparking complaints from liberal critics.

A video of the singer sporting a bushy red beard — and wielding a guitar — became a viral sensation thanks to social media, where a number of influential users, particularly in conservative media, began circulating the clip.

His song and message might have gone viral, but Anthony likes to think of himself as “just some idiot and his guitar,” according to a recent Facebook post.

“I’m not a good musician, I’m not a very good person. I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it,” he shared. “I am sad to see the world in the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with each other. I have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the greatest country on Earth is quickly fading away.”

Anthony goes on to say how he hates the division that the internet has brought to the world, and that the internet is “a parasite that infects the minds of humans.”

“I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung,” he added. “No editing, no agent, no bullshit … the style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.”