There’s a new song in country music that’s striking a chord with American farm families.
“McArthur,” sung by Hardy, Eric Church, Morgan Wallen and Tim McGraw, tells the story of a farm passed through four generations of the same family. Each verse introduces a new McArthur, carrying the land forward in his own time, shaped by different circumstances but tied to the same piece of ground.
That’s the same story many farmers are living today. And if you haven’t heard it yet, take a listen.
John McArthur
The song begins with John McArthur, a man working the land with a mule and a plow to provide for his family. As the first generation, John spends his days laying the foundation of the farm. He doesn’t know what the future holds for the operation, but he knows the work is worth it.
Every farm has this first generation: the person who gave the farm its start. Our grandparents or great-grandparents built the farm out of necessity without knowing what was ahead.
They planted the first crops, cleared the first fields and figured things out as they went. The decisions they made might not have seemed big at the time, but they laid the groundwork for the generations that followed. Even without a map, they knew the farm was something worth building and passing on.
Junior McArthur
Next comes Junior McArthur, the son who steps up to take over the farm but is sent off to war and never returns home.
He represents the second generation: the ones who take over a farm that’s already established but face challenges much different from what their parents experienced. Where John built the foundation, Junior inherits it and has to figure out how to keep it going.
Jones McArthur
After Junior comes Jones McArthur, the third generation to farm the same ground. By the time it’s his turn, the farm is running smoother, but the problems he’s dealing with aren’t the same ones his dad faced. He represents the generation trying to respect what was built while figuring out how to make it work in a more modern world.
In the song, Jones is also the one trying to pass along the lessons he learned growing up on the farm. He understands the value of the land and the work that went into building it, and he tries to teach his son the same thing.
But his son comes home from college seeing something different. Where Jones sees a family history, his son sees the dollar signs tied to the land.
Hunter McArthur
Finally, the song introduces Hunter McArthur. He’s the fourth generation, the one now standing in front of the decision many farms eventually face.
In the lyrics, Hunter is presented with a deal that would turn the farm into a neighborhood. It’s a tempting offer. After generations of hard work, the land is suddenly worth a lot of money.
Hunter represents the generation many farms are looking to today. The farm is established and the land has significant value, but the question becomes what to do with it next.
For many young farmers, this generation faces a different set of decisions from the ones before them. They have more opportunities off the farm and often more outside pressure pulling them in different directions. At the same time, they’re inheriting or buying into farms that have decades of work behind them.
A Familiar Tune
At the end of each generation’s part in the song, a line is sung: “When you pass on, what are you going to pass down?”
Farming has always been about passing things along. Each generation takes what the last one started and tries to make it better, but that chain only works if someone is willing to take the next link.
Today, the pressures on the next generation are real. Land values keep climbing, development keeps pushing farther into the countryside, and, for some families, the offer to sell the farm is hard to pass up. But most farms exist because someone in the previous generation chose to keep it going. They made improvements and worked through challenges with the idea that the farm would be there for the next generation to build on.
The world could use more farmers like the McArthurs. So, when it’s time to think about the next generation, ask yourself this: When you pass on, what are you going to pass down?
For more on succession planing, read:
