Jason Aldean Didn’t Like ‘Big Green Tractor’: 'Really!? That One?'

Jason Aldean revealed that he had to be talked into releasing one of his biggest hits, Big Green Tractor, and he certainly didn’t anticipate the level of success it had in 2009.

In a new interview with Taste Of Country’s Evan Paul, Aldean said he never expected the song to be a hit.

“I mean, I thought the song was cool, and I cut it. And I was like, ‘Yeah, this is cool.’ But I never...to this day, that’s my longest; that song was #1 for four weeks, and I’ve never had another song stay for four weeks.”

Big Green Tractor was the singer’s third #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, written by Jim Collins and David Lee Murphy and recorded by Aldean.

In September 2009, the track was certified platinum by the RIAA and was listed as the #1 ringtone of the year in the US. So, Big Green Tractor became inescapable.

Elsewhere in the interview, Aldean explained that his producer, Michael Knox, was the one who talked him into releasing Big Green Tractor as a single.

“He was like, 'I’m telling ya man, there’s something about this song,’” Aldean recalled of Knox’s thoughts on the song.

Describing his apprehension towards it, Aldean said, “I don't typically put out songs that are a little tongue in cheek lyric… talking about a tractor, it’s just not... that was the song? But once the album came out, people were kind of gravitating towards [that one] and stuff, and I’m like, ‘Really?! That one?’”

Last year, Aldean made headlines after his music video for Try That In A Small Town was pulled by CMT - allegedly due to it being a “pro-lynching song”. The song also sparked protests outside his concert in September 2023, with protesters reportedly burning flags and labelling Aldean a “fascist piece of shit”.

Aldean had a scary start to 2024 when his plane had to make an emergency landing in January. 

“Our plane, we thought, was gonna fall out of the sky,” Aldean said of the incident in a video with fellow passenger and singer Luke Bryan.