Lyr Req: Combine Harvester (parody, Brand New Key)

Subject: Can anyone identify this song?
From: jennyr
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 11:09 AM

My son (who's three) has come home from nursery humming a tune which I identify as 'Alice the Camel' - but he says it's not that. When I asked him what the words were, he said something that sounded like 'Cam by car stigger', and then 'Chug chug chug chug chugging along'. The only thing I can think of that might make sense is 'Combine Harvester', but that doesn't really help me much.

Anyone have any idea what he might be talking about?

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?
From: Silas
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 11:15 AM

Only song I know with 'Combine Harvester' in the lyrics is the parody of Melanies 'Brand new pair of roller-skates', but I don't recall a Chug Chug etc. bit.

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?
From: jennyr
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 03:45 PM

Yes, that was the only one I could think of, too - but I sang it to him and he was very unimpressed!

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?
From: Cats
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 03:49 PM

Could be Tony Franklins The Higgler. Chorus is
Jogging along jogging along jogging along with Harry o
Never knew a pony go half as well as harry pots and pans paraffin cans tapping out their song
I can hear the Higgler come a jog jog jogging along

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?
From: jennyr
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 04:07 PM

No, but we've found it! Big Red Combine Harvester, on 'It's Time to Fly' by Niki Davies. Hooray for google!

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 07:02 PM

Alice the Camel

Alice the camel has five humps.
Alice the camel has five humps.
Alice the camel has five humps.
So go, Alice, go.

Alice the camel has four humps.
Alice the camel has four humps.
Alice the camel has four humps.
So go, Alice, go.

Alice the camel has three humps.
Alice the camel has three humps.
Alice the camel has three humps.
So go, Alice, go.

Alice the camel has two humps.
Alice the camel has two humps.
Alice the camel has two humps.
So go, Alice, go.

Alice the camel has one hump.
Alice the camel has one hump.
Alice the camel has one hump.
So go, Alice, go.

Alice the camel has no humps.
Alice the camel has no humps.
Alice the camel has no humps.
Cause Alice is a horse of course!

As learned by my daughter at Happy House Nursery School more years ago than she will admit.
- Phil

Subject: RE: Can anyone identify this song?-chugging along
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 07:09 PM

You can find all sorts of recordings of "Big Red Combine Harvester" at YouTube. If it's red, does that mean the manufacturer is International Harvester? Green is John Deere, Orange is Case.

Anybody wanna post the words?

-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Add: COMBINE HARVESTER (The Wurzels)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 11 - 07:20 PM

Now, here's one that would be a big hit back home in rural Wisconsin (YouTube):

COMBINE HARVESTER (BRAND NEW KEY)
(Melanie Safka / Brendan O'Shaughnessy -
- Parody of Melanie Safka's "Brand New Key")

The Wurzels (vocal: Pete Budd) - 1976


I drove my tractor
Through yur 'aystack last night (Ooh-arrhh, ooh-arrhh)
I threw me pitchfork at yur dog
To keep quiet (Ooh-arrhh, ooh-arrhh)
Now somethin's tellin' me
That you'm avoidin' me
Come on now, darlin'
You've got somethin' I need

'Cause I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together
In perfect harmony
I got twenty acres
An' you got forty-three
Now I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key

SPOKEN: She made I laugh, ha-ha

I'll stick by you
I'll give you all that you need
We'll 'ave twins and triplets
I'm a man built for speed
And you know I'll love you, darlin'
So give me yur hand
But what I want the most
Is all they acres of land

'Cause I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together
In perfect harmony
I got twenty acres
An' you got forty-three
Now I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key

SPOKEN: Ooh-aah, she's a lovely bit of stuff an' all

For seven long years
I've been alone in this place
Eat, sleep, in the kitchen
It's a proper disgrace
Now if I cleaned it up
Would you change your mind
I'll give up drinkin' scrumpy
And that lager and lime

'Cause I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together
In perfect harmony
I got twenty acres
An' you got forty-three
Now I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key

SPOKEN: Who loves ya, baby, ha

Weren't we a grand couple
At that last wurzel dance
I wore brand new gaiters
And me corduroy pants
In your new Sunday dress
With your perfume smellin' grand
We had our photos took
An' us holdin' hands

Now I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key
Now that we'me both past our fifties
I think that you and me
Should stop this galavanting
And will you marry me
'Cause I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key

SPOKEN: Aahh, yu're a fine lookin' woman
and I can't wait to get me 'ands on yur land

Source: http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/c/combineharvester.shtml

Yeah, I know....it's been posted here before, but never in a thread with "combine harvester" in the title.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 03 Feb 11 - 09:26 AM

Alice the Camel Has One Hump has apparently been folk-processed by at least one infant into Alistair Campbell Has One Hump.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Lester
Date: 03 Feb 11 - 01:51 PM

Joe - If it's red and in the UK it is almost certainly a Massey Ferguson not International Harvester

Signed

A Sad Vintage Tractor Spotter

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Feb 11 - 02:12 AM

Hi, Lester-
I come from Racine, Wisconsin. When I was growing up there in the late 1950s, J.I. Case was the one of the major employers in town. Massey Harris Ferguson also had a plant in Racine that produced red harvesting combines. I beg forgiveness for forgetting my roots.

I should also call attention to the fact that Racine was the U.S. home of another brand you know in the UK - Horlick's Malted Milk.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: gnomad
Date: 04 Feb 11 - 09:29 AM

So, Lester, what colour were the IH that were sold in the UK from about 1950 through to mid 80s? My memory is not what it was (at least I don't think it is) but it keeps bringing up a picture of red machines and I remember the name from childhood outings in E.Yorks or N.Lincs. The other name that keeps recurring is New Holland, but that doesn't come with a mental picture.

The only relevant video I own has a red combine, but as you predicted this was a Massey Ferguson. There is also some poor footage of a rather nasty pale-khaki job with red header, I can't make out the logo, but it doesn't look right for the IH badge.

I did a quick Google, & learned that IH were made in the old Jowett works at Idle for nearly 30 years, and that the Doncaster works actually exported some parts for American-built machines. Pictures show a multitude of different machines in various shades.

Just for Joe here's the cover of the Wurzels' song he posted above, complete with red combine.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Feb 11 - 12:31 PM

I live four blocks from Kansas, with its huge crops of wheat and maize. And we don't hear about combine harvesters, we hear about Harvester combines.

A combine is a complex harvesting machine which does many tasks. (I'm pretty sure they are used only for wheat, but I could be wrong.) A Harvester combine is a combine made by International Harvester, a corporation.

Makes me wonder if the people who produced that parody had ever met an actual farmer.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Lester
Date: 04 Feb 11 - 02:21 PM

@gnomad - sorry could have worded it better, what I meant was that in the UK it was far more likely to be a MF rather than and IH as the MF were UK made and therefore not as costly as the IH imports.

@leeneia - in the UK the term combine harvester is used for a machine that cuts any cereal crop and separates the grain from the straw/chaff which exits the rear of the machine.

Wikipedia

Sorry, as stated above I'm a sad agricultural machine spotter

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 06:06 AM

Mr Mondegreen has visited the school - methinks.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: gnomad
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 06:23 AM

Not a bother Lester, you just got me wondering, on an otherwise rather dull day. I always liked harvest time, but it is a fair way off right now.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 02:51 PM

Okay, Lester. I stand corrected.

If this is a British Isles song, why is he after her acres rather than her hectares?

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 03:58 PM

Hectares are newcomers - upstarts from the continent. We've had rolling acres for centuries.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:08 PM

Rumour has it that an acre was originally the amount of land that could be ploughed by one man and one ox in a day. This resulted in some variation as some acres were easier to plough than others.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:20 PM

So having ploughed his field for a day, the farmer would say, "That was a real acher!"


I'll get me hat ....

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST,SRD
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:45 PM

Quote:
So having ploughed his field for a day, the farmer would say, "That was a real acher!"


I'll get me hat ....

For one moment I thought you said Archer.

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: Lester
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:50 PM

As we all, well those of a certain age, remember an acre (4840 sq yds) is a chain (22 yds) by a furlong (220 yds). Or 40 rods/poles/perches by 4 rods/poles/perches(1 rods/poles/perchesbeing 5.5yds).

Subject: RE: identify this song?- Big Red Combine Harvester
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 05:58 PM

and 640 acres = one square mile. A number chosen, I'm sure, because it's so handy to divvy up. You got your square mile, your 320, your 160, your 80, your 40, your 20-acre ranchette, your 10-acre 'nice place in the country,' your 4-acre prestige homesite, you one-acre lot...

And then there's my place. Big enough for a bungalow, one tree, and a few tomatoes.