Songfacts®:

• Jim Collins and David Lee Murphy wrote this song about a couple riding a tractor on a date. Collins appears to have a thing for penning "tractor" songs having previously co-written Kenny Chesney's 1999 hit single "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy."
• Aldean commented in publicity materials with a grin: "There's nothin' more romantic than a tractor. If you live in South Georgia, a Saturday night out on the tractor with your girl is probably not that far-fetched of what could be considered a good 'date night.' The song seems to be connecting already, so maybe tractors have always been romantic, and everybody just needed reminding."
• This was Aldean's third #1 on the Country chart and his second successful chart-topper following "She's Country." The song was the first to spend four weeks at #1 since Brad Paisley's "Letter to Me" reigned for four weeks 19 months previously in February 2008.
• The huge success of this song has caused a huge increase in attendance at Aldean's concerts. He commented to AOL's The Boot: "As an artist you look for a career-changing song and that was definitely one of those. Now we're seeing crowds of 8,000 to 9,000 where we were seeing 3,000 people. 'She's Country' changed a lot of things, but 'Tractor' really changed it for me. If someone had asked me which song on the album would have been that, I'd never have picked 'Big Green Tractor.' I loved the song and wanted it to be a single, but to have it do what it's done, I'd have never thought it. Apparently there are a bunch of people who like to get freaky on a tractor!"
• David Lee Murphy, who had a successful solo career in the 1990s including the hits "Party Crowd" and "Dust on the Bottle," told The Boot the story of the song: "I live outside of Nashville. I spend a lot of time out on my farm and on my tractor. The night before [Jim and I] had gotten together to write, I was out bush-hogging. One of my favorite things to do is get out and bush-hog at night and play around with my tractor. I was out riding around one night, and I just got the idea for that song. I started singing the chorus in my head.
  I was supposed to write with Jim the next day. I walked into his office and I said, "Hey man, do you feel like writing another tractor song?" He just busted out laughing and said, "It's been about eight years since 'She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy'... I think I'm through!" We sat down and wrote that song.When you write songs sometimes, you just have a feeling that "this is going to be a hit song." I had that feeling with 'Party Crowd,' and I had that feeling with 'Dust on the Bottle.' When we wrote 'Big Green Tractor,' it just felt like, "Man, this song feels really great. It's special and it's different." You just feel fortunate to be around when something like that happens. Songwriters, we just sit around there and wait for the ideas to come. Some days it doesn't happen, and some days it does. That was just one of those days that I was lucky enough to be there when that one came up."
• The song was originally pitched to Jake Owen but he passed on it. Aldean explained to Audacy's Coop that the Florida native didn't believe the song would be relatable to listeners coming from someone with his roots.
  
  "The times I've talked to Jake, he's been really honest," Aldean shared. "He goes, 'I'm a Florida kid… it was a hit, but it just wasn't believable for me to sing about it and it would've just never worked.'"
• The track's success surprised Aldean. "I thought the song was cool, ya know, and I cut it," he told Evan Paul on Taste of Country Nights. "That song was #1 for four weeks, and I've never had another song stay for four weeks."
  
  Aldean's producer Michael Knox was the one that talked him into recording the track. "He was like, 'I'm telling ya man, there's something about this song," said the country star.
  
  Still, Aldean wasn't entirely convinced. "I just don't typically put out songs that are a little tongue-and-cheek lyric that are, ya know, talking about a tractor," he said. "But once the album came out, people were kind of gravitating towards and stuff, and I'm like, 'really?! That one?'"