The Wurzels started life in 1966 as a semi-serious folk (or 'Scrumpy & Western' as their first EP was called) band lead by Adge Cutler. Following his death in 1974, The Wurzels found themselves without their main songwriter, but rather than call it a day they carried on by 'Wurzelising' other people's tunes instead of writing their own from scratch. Thus, "The Combine Harvester" is a skit on professional hippy Melanie Safka's 'Brand New Key'. As someone who has always found all elements of Ms Safka's output insufferably grating, The Wurzels were already more than halfway toward winning me over with their take on her song, but in truth whether you find any of this amusing depends a lot on how far you're willing to buy into the stereotype of West Country folk being straw sucking, smock wearing, cider swilling farmboy yokels. Because regardless of the parody within the song, this is the joke that The Wurzels were now peddling, no more and no less (which probably makes "The Combine Harvester" the UK number one that travels least well) and each successive single after "The Combine Harvester" flogged this particular horse all the way to the knackers yard. The record buying public were savvy enough to recognise a one trick pony when they saw one too with with each subsequent single doing less well in the charts than the previous, but as far as this goes, "The Combine Harvester" presents a neat and complete package of sound and vision. And just as long as you're willing to play along, it will consistently raise a smile, especially if you have sight of singer Pete Budd's archetypical village idiots face beaming back at you with his "I drove my tractor through your haystack last night", surely the inspiration for Spinal Tap's 'Sex Farm'.* Shame really that it wasn't a one off.
* Though obviously they turned the innuendo up to 11:
"Working on a sex farm
Trying to raise some hard love
Getting out my pitch fork
And poking your hay"
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