Remember me
Traditional Country (#510) on the Country DDS.
A unique collaboration that gets your attention, “McArthrur” matches up slightly strange bedfellows to tell an epic story across generations, while remaining starkly relevant to a contemporary audience. It’s also produced as an authentic, stripped down traditional country track.
It’s definitely not strange to see Hardy and Morgan Wallen collaborating together. They are regular songwriting buddies. Eric Church and Morgan Wallen are also good friends, purchasing the “Field & Stream” brand together and attempting to revitalize it, as well as collaborating on other songs in the past. Church was also one of the few people to reach out to Wallen after the notorious N-word incident with guidance and friendship.
Tim McGraw is the wild card here, who along with being an older artist, is also one of country music’s more liberal voices, even if rather passive. But his presence here feels like it raises the credibility of this entire collaboration, irrespective of how you might feel about McGraw himself, anyone else involved, or even this song.
“McArthur” tells the story of four generations of a family trying to hold on to the family land. Not to give away too much, but the idea of holding onto the land becomes a struggle as it’s passed down. The song ends with the open question if the property will remain in the McArthur name, or if the big payday will be taken to create yet another suburban neighborhood.
The song was not written by the performers, but by Jameson Rodgers, Chase McGill, and Josh Thompson along with Hardy. Officially, this is a Hardy single, with the other folks playing the roles of the forefathers, namely Tim McGraw as the elder John McArthur, Eric Church as the first son Junior McArthur, Junior’s son Jones McArthur played by Hardy, and eventually Hunter McArthur portrayed by Morgan Wallen.
You really have to pat these guys on the back for trying to do something unique with this four-person collaboration, and something that’s distinctly country-sounding. You just don’t see these kinds of songs happen, now or really ever outside of supergroups.
But as unique as the approach to “McArthur” is, there’s one pretty obvious criticism that can be levied about the composition, given away by the very first line sung by McGraw, “My name is John McArthur and I work this dirt.”
As Saving Country Music pointed out back in October of 2024, there has been a rash of songs released in country music that leaned heavily into the theme of folks being asked to sell their family land, and specifically with the word “dirt” in the title. Cody Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap” was topping the country radio charts about the same time Justin Moore’s “This Is My Dirt” was doing the same thing.
And the Cody Johnson/Justin Moore songs were just two popular examples. There have been multiple other songs that fit this “dirt” trope that have been released over the last two years. “McArthur” is yet another, even if it takes the more novel approach of the multi-generational perspective utilizing multiple voices.
But one of the reasons the lyrical theme of “McArthur” continues to come up is because it continues to be strongly relevant along the exerb line surrounding major cities, especially in the American South where so much of the population is migrating. You also don’t want to be too critical of a track that looks to do something original in country, and that happens to sound super country while doing so.
Can you hear a song like “McArthur” competing something like the CMA’s Musical Event of the Year? Sure. And you wouldn’t be too exercised if it won. It’s good, if not as great or epic like it could have been with a slightly more original theme. But for mainstream country, “McArthur” is superior.
8/10
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