Hardy shared a little bit more detail about the top-secret mystery that he, Morgan Wallen, Eric Church and Tim McGraw have been teasing this week.
And, well — in hindsight, it seems so obvious that we should have known all along what was coming.
On Thursday morning (Jan. 29), the four artists shared a social media update that seemed to reveal a song snippet, plus some lyrics, from a new collaborative song dropping at midnight.
The cover art, bearing the last name McArthur and a design of the heartbeat pattern of an ECG, goes along with the song teases all four artists posted to their social accounts earlier in the week.
“When you pass on, what you gonna pass down?” the caption reads.
The Obvious Clue That We All Missed About Morgan Wallen, Tim McGraw, Eric Church + Hardy’s New “McArthur” Project
When the teases first started rolling in, we guessed that the foursome had a song in store — and that guess now seems correct, with a snippet of that unreleased song now posted.
Read More: 5 Guesses About What Tim McGraw, Eric Church, Morgan Wallen + Hardy Are Teasing
We also knew that a song called “McArthur” was registered to ASCAP, with Hardy credited as a songwriter and no performers publicly attached. That tidbit was first discovered by a German Morgan Wallen fan account.
Hardy Morgan Wallen Eric Church Tim McGraw Song Tease
But the song tease brings something else to light. This is a song about fatherhood, and about what you pass down to your kids and grandkids after you die.
Even before the lyrics highlighted that theme, we should’ve been able to put two and two together. The last name, McArthur, was a tip-off that this song is a family story.
Caleigh Hardy, Instagram
We knew that Hardy was a writer on the song, and we also knew that he’s a new dad. He and his wife Caleigh welcomed their first child, baby girl Rosie, last March. Though Hardy’s said he “doesn’t want to force” writing songs about being a dad, he has admitted “the ideas are there” and all but said that parenting would probably work its way into his songwriting at some point.
Read More: Morgan Wallen Confronts His Past in a Song For His Son
It also makes sense that he would take a song inspired by parenthood to these specific three collaborators. McGraw, Church and Wallen are all dads, too. They’ve all written or recorded dad-centric material in the past.
We’ve Still Got One Big Question About Morgan Wallen, Eric Church, Tim McGraw + Hardy’s Collab
According to the artists’ first posts teasing the collaboration, the four McArthur characters lived during mostly-overlapping time periods between the 1920s and today.
But they’re not a direct father-son line.
Here’s the breakdown of everybody’s dates, complete with the artist who posted each corresponding character:
John McArthur (Tim McGraw): Nov. 2, 1920 — Nov. 22, 1963
Junior McArthur (Eric Church): Sept. 20, 1945 — Apr. 4, 1967
Jones McArthur (Hardy): June 5, 1968 — Jan. 5, 2025
Hunter McArthur (Morgan Wallen): May 13, 1993
Junior could easily be John’s son, born when John was in his mid-20s. Same goes for Hunter and Jones. But Jones is definitely not Junior’s son. If Junior died in April 1967, there’s no way he could have fathered Jones, who was born the following June — 14 months later.
Intriguingly, all four artists (except for Wallen, who posted his character’s tease on Instagram Stories instead of to the grid) have now deleted those initial posts of their page.
What does it all mean, and what’s the family tie between Junior and Jones? We’ll need to wait until midnight to find out.
The 50 Saddest Country Songs of All Time
Each one of the 50 saddest country songs of all time tells a story. Some of those stories are about the pain of heartbreak, while others explore the grief of losing a loved one. Some are about more unconventional subject matter — from infertility to the loss of the beloved family dog — while others tap into the universal subjects of heartbreak and loneliness. Flip through the gallery below for a list of the saddest country songs, ever.
