Bob Wagner has some perfect advice for us all on this updating on the murder ballad form, as Richest Man On Earth opens with a killing – but it’s not what you’re thinking. No violence was involved, just an unsubscription: “Didn’t shoot him, didn’t stab him, not even a black eye / I just stopped paying him attention ’cause I’m too broke to spend my mind / You see, all he wants is all the eyeballs on him all the time / He may elicit some of your affection, but he can’t get none of mine.” Yes, Bob Wagner has the solution for toxic hate filled social media – disconnect from it: because it’s full of hate and it’s making some objectionable people very rich, and we don’t want to do that.
He could, naturally, join our Forum, only the well behaved and musically inclined are allowed. Well, mostly well behaved. Ok, ok we get rowdy occasionally – but, hey, not on Forum posts.
The song is taken from Wagner’s solo album I’ve Been Down, which is out on the 12th of June. It features the glistening pedal steel from Sturgill Simpson’s guitarist Laur Joamets. Speaking of the song Bob Wagner says: “I was driving home after buying a 100-year-old Oscar Schmidt rubber bridge guitar, I’d been thinking about writing a murder ballad, and the guitar felt like the kind you’d write one on. I wrote it on the drive, and when I got home, all I had to do was press record. It speaks to a composite of nefarious, attention-seeking characters in politics and capitalism—and while literal murder isn’t the intent, figuratively speaking, starving the beast of its endless need for the spotlight is an idea worth considering.”
