Country music star John Rich's new anti-woke song tells leftists to 'stick your progress where the sun don't shine' — and it hits #1 on iTunes in just hours



Country star John Rich — one half of the popular duo Big & Rich — penned a decidedly anti-woke song he dubbed "Progress" that rails against left-wing politics and culture and stands up for traditional American values.

However, Rich told Just the News that he foresaw a problem getting a song that tells leftists to "stick your progress where the sun don't shine" played on the radio and distributed to the masses. Mainly because the music industry also leans left.

So Rich did an end-around on Friday, bypassing the music industry's gatekeepers and instead releasing "Progress" on Truth Social — the platform started by former President Donald Trump — and on the Rumble video platform.

What happened next?

In just a few hours, "Progress" jumped to number one on iTunes, Just the News said, besting the likes of Billie Eilish and Lizzo and Beyonce. A quick glance Tuesday at PopVortex revealed that "Progress" is indeed the top song on the American iTunes charts.

"Here I am with no record label, no publisher, no marketing deal," Rich told Just the News. "I just got a song that speaks to a lot of people, and Truth and Rumble pushed it out there. And man, I'm really proud of what we did today."

A lyric in "Progress" takes aim at the forces that conspire to "shut down our voices," and Rich explained to the outlet that he's "talking about Twitter and YouTube and Facebook. And I thought, 'You know what? I'm gonna reach out to Truth Social and reach out to Rumble because they still allow free speech over there.' Why would I launch this song on the platforms that I'm railing against in the lyrics?"

Rich added to Just the News that his launch experiment is "bypassing this machine that they've built, going right around the machine, going right to the people. It means that if you bring the right content, and you have people like Truth and Rumble that will get that message to your core audience, you can beat the machine that's been put in place to keep people like me shut down."

He also told the outlet that "the problem with country radio" isn't the DJs or others at country music stations; instead "it's the people way up the food chain that run the conglomerates that have bought up 90% of all of our radio stations ... a big [contingent] of them ... do not like anybody bucking their woke system."

Still, Rich added to Just the News that "there's a few good ones in there. And when I say 'good,' I mean, you know, 'lean conservative.' They want free space; they want artists to be heard."

The meaning of 'Progress'

The author of "Progress" revealed to the outlet how his new song was born.

"I'm watching what I consider to be the dismantling of our country at a lot of different levels," Rich told Just the News. "And when you sit back and look at it, the vast majority of it's being perpetuated on us under the banner of 'progress.' Like in the name of progress we're going to send gasoline through the roof so you have to buy an electric car. In the name of progress, we're going to let anybody and everybody into our country, and if that means we get overrun with fentanyl and every other bad thing, well, so be it. Because that's progressive: You need to be open-minded and open borders in the name of progress. They target our kids in the name of progress; they do all these things that are actually the opposite of that. They're regressive. They're not constructive, they're destructive."

Here are the lyrics:

There's a hole in this country where its heart used to be
And Old Glory's divided on fire in the street
They say Building Back Better will make America great
If that's a wave of the future, all I've got to say
(chorus) Stick your progress where the sun don't shine
Keep your big mess away from me and mine
If you leave us alone, well we'd all be just fine
Stick your progress where the sun don't shine
They invite the whole world to come live in our land
And leave our countrymen dying in Afghanistan
They say let go of Jesus, let government save
And you can have back your freedom if you do what we say
(chorus)
They shut down our pipelines, and they shut down our voices
They shut down our Main Streets, and they shut down our choices
They bent us all over, but it's all over now
'Cause we've figured it out, we ain't backing down
(chorus)

Here's Rich playing "Progress" live on on "Fox & Friends" and explaining its origins:

Fox & Friends : John Rich's 'non-woke' song hits number one on iTunesyoutu.be

John Rich savages fellow country music stars kowtowing to leftist ideology with silence following 'woke' CMT Music Awards show



Country music star John Rich launched into a diatribe against his fellow country artists on Thursday, tearing into them for what he said was silence when it came to speaking up for their values.

In the tweet, he appeared to suggest that leftist ideologies were infiltrating the industry, and complicit country music singers were more apt to keep their mouths closed — perhaps out of fear of cancellation — thus allowing liberals to steamroll what they care about into the ground.

Rich made the remarks just one day after Wednesday night's 2021 CMT Music Awards, which Rolling Stone praised for what it suggested was the annual show's newfound "wokeness."

What are the details?

In the Thursday morning tweet, the outspoken country star wrote, "There are many conservative country music singers that just won't say anything to push back against the ideologies that aim to erase what they care about. Why? You know why. I hope soon we see them start to speak up. The country music industry is out of touch with the audience."

There are many conservative country music singers that just won't say anything to push back against the ideologies… https://t.co/hzhhXhIk7G

— John Rich (@johnrich) 1623335303.0

What happened Wednesday night?

According to Rolling Stone, the CMT Music Awards had five defining moments that detailed how "the show woke up."

Rolling Stone's Jon Freeman and Joseph Hudak began the lengthy article, "The producers of the 2021 CMT Music Awards were clearly paying attention. After a year-plus national conversation about equity, diversity, and, yes, racism, Wednesday night's CMT Awards made a clear attempt to be inclusive, devoting airtime to artists and personalities of color."

They continued, "While we would have liked to have seen the CMTs acknowledge June as LGBTQ Pride Month (especially after former CMT Awards host Kid Rock doubled down on a homophobic slur on Twitter a few hours earlier), the production was an admirable step forward in country music's ongoing evolution."

Several moments of diversity that caught their attention, Freeman and Hudak added, included Gladys Knight's performance with Breland and Mickey Guyton to cover "Friendship Train," which the pair said "has a stirring message of unity for a world about to go up in flames."

"Somehow, it's a message that — no offense — just hits different when it's not coming from Tim McGraw and Tyler Hubbard," the article added.

Freeman and Hudak also lauded the show for naming Linda Martell with CMT's Equal Play Award "owing to her status as the lone black woman to have charted a solo single inside the country Top 20."

"[I]t was the presentation of Video of the Year that best illustrated how CMT is reading the room and looking forward," Freeman and Hudak noted. "Anthony Mackie, the black 'Captain America' star of Disney's 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,' made his CMT Awards debut to give the trophy to winners Carrie Underwood and John Legend — TV's biggest superhero handing out the night's biggest award."

What else?

Rich's remarks also come just a week after CMT fans threatened a boycott of the network after it urged viewers to support a Michael Bloomberg-backed gun control initiative from Everytown for Gun Safety.

The network tweeted its support of the movement last week, writing, "We're (virtually) wearing orange today in support [sic] National Gun Violence Awareness Day and to call attention to more than 100 lives that are lost every day to gun violence. #WearOrange and visit rearrange.org for more."

The tweet was not well received for many fans, and one user blasted the comment as "anti-gun propaganda disguised as virtue."

"CMT has gone down the train with all other corporations who sell out to Woke extremists," the user added.

Another Twitter user noted, "I for one, will not ever watch any station who champions any campaign against the 2nd Amendment, which is what CMT just did. You'd think they would know their audiance [sic], but you put woke idiots in charge, and you get stupidity."

Yet another critic complained, "@CMT and @NASCAR have both forgotten who their core audience is again I see."