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.
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
It’s not a bad song but the subject matter is incredibly unoriginal and almost so tired to the point of making the song forgettable. Hearing the same rehashed story about losing family land or “dirt” to rich investors over and over again starts to get old and, dare I say, even a little preachy.
I do have a soft spot for Corb Lund’s “S Lazy H” (Released 2015, a decade before the SCM article needed to be written)
I am an Eric church fan. Tim McGraw has tons of great songs from the 90s. Look even I can tolerate wallen in some circumstances. But HARDY is truly intolerable to me. I cannot listen to any song with him at this point he’s the worst of the worst.
Not quite the epic that was Highwayman, but happy to see a well written country story-song performed by four heavy-hitter collaborators. Although it would have been badass to have Willie on the first verse, Strait on the second, McGraw on the third, then Morgan or HARDY on the fourth.
Very good song. If someone like Stephen Wilson Jr and Zach Top took Bro Country Kings Hardy/Wallen spot it would be outstanding
Given how hard the era-to-era decline it has been for Hardy from “the mockingbird & THE CROW” to “COUNTRY COUNTRY” commercially………..it was definitely smart for Hardy to pivot away from that album as soon as possible with something that might generate buzz. And his previous “HIXTAPE” series has demonstrated his ability to draw a bunch of established names together in Nashville much like DJ Khaled in commercial rap.
This is decent for the mainstream. My main criticism of Hardy as a songwriter is that he has beyond exhausted the well of redneck-isms to the point he’s just repeating himself for the umpteenth time or, worse, his lyrics were actually a screenplay for an animated “HARDY The Redneck Reindeer” series. With “Rednecker” and much of “A Rock” the former was obviously tongue-in-cheek and I felt there was some genuine descriptive effort throughout that debut, and I also felt similarly about much of the original “HIXTAPE”. But everything since then was Hardy on auto-pilot and lacking in personal touch and artistic growth. “McArthur” is definitely his best release since probably “Give Heaven Some Hell”.
It sounds good. Had I not read this and knew going in it was Hardy singing the third verse I’da swore it was Parker McCollum (and probably liked it more thinking that). For my money Mellencamp’s Rain on the Scarecrow will forever set the impossibly high bar for these kind of songs.
I can’t stand the music or personality of Morgan Wallen, any Hardy song I don’t mind ends up being an Ernest song, Eric Church is whatever, and I like McGraw as an actor, while enjoying some of his more nostalgic songs from when I was a kid. With that said I thought this was a very good song. I liked the content, and the production. I just happened to listen to the song The Highwayman several times last night, then the entire Road Goes on Forever album by The Highwaymen as well, then woke up to this. This song didn’t measure up, but that’s a pretty unfair comparison. I thought the last two verses of this song sort of petered out. But a good song, that I was surprised I liked. First two verses were great.
Aside from Morgan Wallen’s unbearable voice, it’s a pretty good song. In terms of content, I had hoped for more given the symbolic birth and death dates of the McArthurs posted by the contributors. But at least it’s a real country song.
The comments so far lean towards wishing they had more, but I have to vehemently disagree. With some of the participants in this, we should TOTALLY support this. Go country!
Source: savingcountrymusic.com