I feel like I need one of those maps with string on it to put all the pieces together.
Yesterday, some of the biggest names in country music set fans off on a massive investigation after dropping some cryptic posts on social media.
Eric Church, Morgan Wallen, HARDY and Tim McGraw all shared similar graphics with the name of a member of the “McArthur” family, along with their birth and death dates.
Fans quickly began to attempt to make sense of the teasers: Some of the dates on the graphics line up with historical events, like the JFK assassination, while others don’t have an obvious meaning. (The date on the graphic shared by Morgan lines up with his own birthday).
All this comes days after Church, during two shows at The Anthem in Washington D.C. on his Free the Machine tour, teased a “surprise” coming on January 30, telling the crowd that it was “the sh-t” and that they would “f—ing love it.”
So what does it all mean?
Well fans quickly speculated that it was a new song, or even an EP or an album, or some kind of Highwaymen-like supergroup featuring the four artists.
But someone quickly uncovered a clue that may hold the answer.
ASCAP, the organization responsible for licensing the rights to songs, has a song in its database called “McArthur” that was written by HARDY along with Jameson Rodgers, Chase McGill and “Joshua Dennis Anthony Bagles.”
One of those songwriters, Jameson Rodgers, also shared an Instagram post about the teasers with a simple caption:
Rodgers is a well-known artist and songwriter in Nashville, having written hits for Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and several others.
Likewise, McGill is a frequent Morgan Wallen collaborator, writing songs like “20 Cigarettes,” “Mamaw’s House,” “Don’t Think Jesus” and “The Way I Talk” alongside Wallen, along with hits for many other artists.
But who is “Joshua Dennis Anthony Bagles?”
Working in country music I’m pretty familiar with most songwriters in Nashville, but I’d never heard of “Bagles.” So I decided to do some digging to see what else he had written, and in the ASCAP database there were several songs credited to Bagles that featured a name I AM familiar with: Josh Thompson.
Thompson is one of the more underrated artists of the 2010s, somebody who should have been bigger than he was but seemed to get overshadowed by the emergence of Florida Georgia Line and other pop-leaning “bro-country” artists. He had hits with songs like “Blame It On Waylon,” “Beer On the Table,” and “Way Out Here,” which would later be covered by Riley Green.
Back in 2010, Thompson even went on tour with Eric Church, opening up for him on his Jagermeister Country Tour in support of Church’s sophomore album, Carolina.
For the past decade or so, Thompson has made a name for himself as a prolific songwriter in Nashville. He’s written hits like “Any Ol’ Barstool” for Jason Aldean, “Come Back As A Country Boy” for Blake Shelton, “Ain’t Always the Cowboy” by Jon Pardi, and “One Margarita” for Luke Bryan. And he’s also written several hits for Morgan Wallen, including songs like “Wasted On You,” “Just In Case” and “Miami.”
Interestingly though, Thompson has also written songs with none other than Eric Church. The two worked together to pen “Quittin’ Time,” which was recorded by Wallen for his 2021 Dangerous: The Double Album.
So is “Joshua Dennis Anthony Bagles” really just Josh Thompson? Well to confirm my suspicions, I looked at some of the other songs written by Bagles that were listed on ASCAP’s website…and when I went to the songwriting credits for the songs, Bagles wasn’t listed, but Josh Thompson was.
To further confirm my suspicion, I searched BMI (another performing rights organization, like ASCAP) for songs written by Bagles – and it included several of Thompson’s songs:
We don’t know exactly what the “McArthur” project will be, but it appears to at least include a song written by HARDY, Rodgers, McGill and “Bagles” – better known as Josh Thompson.
Whatever it is, it sounds like we’ll find out by Friday. Until then, I’ll be over here doing my best detective work looking for clues.
