David Lee Murphy, writer of Jason Aldean's "Big Green Tractor," celebrates with Jason at the platinum party for his Wide Open CD. Photo by Chris Hollo, courtesy of The GreenRoom.

One of the biggest hits of 2009 was Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor,” which went to No. 1 for four weeks in the fall and — combined with the power-packed previous single, “She’s Country” — launched his concert sales into a whole new stratosphere.

The song, written by 1990s hitmaker David Lee Murphy and Jim Collins, used the tractor as a literary vehicle for the escapism that a relationship can provide. But Jason’s not completely sure that the tractor itself wasn’t the attraction in the song.

“I told the writers if they have any more tractor songs, be sure to send them to me,” Jason told The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.

While country fans are decidedly more suburban than rural these days, the farm industry’s best-known equipment has still gotten a pretty good workout in hit songs. Kenny Chesney has racked up plenty of mileage with “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” and Craig Morgan stopped traffic with his “p-p-p-p-plower” in “International Harvester.” Patty Loveless worked the big wheels into song lyrics — “my tractor don’t get no traction” — in her 1990 hit “On Down The Line,” and Joe Diffie told the love story of Billy Bob and Charlene in his 1993 release “John Deere Green.”

Jason’s wrapped a lot of his music in big-city guitars, but all it’s done is toughen up his country-centric influences.

“Alabama was like the Beatles for me,” he said. “I remember going to see them live in the mid-’80s, and to this day, it’s probably the best show I’d ever seen. They had really country songs, but then they’d record something like ‘Tennessee River,’ which for that time was a little edgier.”

Jason’s “Big Green Tractor” travelled to the same No. 1 turf that Alabama routinely occupied in the ‘80s, but the song is becoming a little more real. A John Deere is no longer just implied in the title — in honor of the song’s success, his wife brought one home.

“She surprised me with a tractor,” he said. “I had been talking that I wanted one, and a couple years ago we bought a 20-acre farm in Nashville, so we kind of needed one anyway.”

Now he really can take her for a ride on his big green tractor…

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