Jason Aldean, “Big Green Tractor”

jason-aldeanIn Northern Maine, where I’m from, there’s something called tooling. You all know it by that term or other names if you live or lived in a small town, but it’s when people simply ride aimlessly around in their cars, up one street and down another with no reason but having “nothing better to do”, which may very well be true in my small hometown at least.

Well, Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” is the redneck version. Instead of a car, it’s a big green tractor and in the place of small town roads are country pastures and woods. At any rate, it’s the being together that’s the main attraction.
While it seems that Aldean’s more refined sweetheart is all ready for a date in town, he offers a more low key alternative: “We could take a ride on my big green tractor/We can go slow or make it go faster/Down through the woods or out to the pasture/Long as I’m with you, it really don’t matter…We could go to town/But baby if you’d rather/I’ll take you for a ride on my big green tractor.”

On paper, the lyrics are surely lame, but Aldean manages to inject a certain charm that carries the song enough to be likeable. Furthermore, the production and vocal is mercifully almost as low key as the suggested activity within the song. All in all, while not a masterpiece, it is pleasant enough and one of Aldean’s more listenable efforts.

Grade: B

Written by James Collins Jr. & David Lee Murphy

Listen: “Big Green Tractor”

Buy:

13 Comments

  1. If I have to hear another tractor-themed song by a fake country boy I’m going to end up smashing my radio. That song She’s Country almost caused me to smash it already, and now a repetitive gratuitous tractor song just to try to prove how generic he is is too much. Others might like him, but for myself I see and hear no charm in his voice or his lyrics, there is nothing original about him.

  2. I agree, Leeann, that Aldean pulls it off, his low key charm makes it work…

    But I also agree with the other comments posted, to a certain degree… that with the proliferation of tractor songs, these guys are turning a symbol of the nobility of hard work into little more than a plaything.

    Can we blame Kenny for starting all this?

    But I’d take Amarillo Sky over She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy, anyday.

    Anyway…I guess it shows a certain amount of imagination to use these farming tools for various purposes.

    I had an uncle who once pulled a “George Jones” with his riding mower…actually I knew of this before I ever learned that George Jones did the same thing…not sure who did it first. ;)

    Happy tooling! :)

  3. Ha, Steve, I don’t know, but I don’t think there’s a lot of tooling going on where I live now. It’s a little bigger than where I grew up.:)

    As you may have gathered from the last line of my review, I’m not much of an Aldean fan. This one is just better than I expected, I guess, though I don’t imagine it’s going to make it on my iPod or anything.

  4. Hey guys….I know this is totally off topic, but a couple of weeks ago one of you posted the Album Sales of the Top Ten country albums and I was wondering if you plan on doing that again? I like seeing that info! Thanks!

  5. “I was making a trip out to LA, -toolin’- around in my Chevrolet…”

    -Charlie Daniels, “Uneasy Rider”

  6. a song-writing masterpiece in the art of double entendre – not every “big green tractor” comes with yellow wheels. and “tooling”, leeann, just brilliant….as is your last paragraph. probably your finest review to date – textbook satire.

  7. This is definitely one of Aldean’s more listenable efforts. It does have a certain charm to it, but I think it has too much electric guitar. I think this song would sound better in a more distictly country style, but I know that’s not going to happen on a Jason Aldean record. I could easily hear Alan Jackson singing a version of this song that’s as twangy as all-get-out. Besides, let’s face it. A song called “Big Green Tractor” does not have a chance at being a crossover pop hit.

  8. heyy! i really love this song it is sweet and meaningful and i know the lyrics forward and backward. and i think some of the comments are quite cruel and mean

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