John Deere Tractor

The song is a letter home. The narrator writes to his mother that his city days are over, recalls her warning to say his prayers and to remember that city women are not the same, and then likens himself to a John Deere tractor in a half-acre field, trying to plow a furrow in soil made of steel. He tells of a woman whose perfume nearly drowned him, who seemed kind and pretty and then laughed at him and called him a country boy, and he ends wishing he were back home where the bluegrass grows.

Larry Sparks recorded it on 16 March 1978 at Lemco Sound Studio in Lexington, Kentucky, with Tommy Boyd singing harmony and playing banjo, Kirk Brandenberger on fiddle and Bob Goff on bass; it opened his Rebel LP John Deere Tractor, released in 1980. The Judds recorded it in March 1983 at the Creative Workshop in Nashville for their first RCA release, the six-song EP Wynonna & Naomi (February 1984); Naomi Judd said the composer could not be traced when they recorded it, so a bank account was opened to hold his royalties. New vocals were added over the original instrumental in 1990 for the duo’s last album, Love Can Build a Bridge, and that version was issued as a single in July 1991, reaching no. 29 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Billy Strings recorded it for his Rounder album Me/And/Dad, released in November 2022.