Four of the five group members were in the RAF, and Hedgehoppers was RAF slang for low flying aircraft. The song, a satire on the media’s obsession with bad news, was written by Jonathan King, who produced the record. It was released in 1965 and got to No 5 in Britain. It was the group’s only hit.
This is the US version of the song (it flopped there). For the UK market the line ‘lots of blood in Asia now, they butchered off the sacred cow, they’ve got a lot to eat’ was changed to ‘families shake the need for gold by stimulating birth control, we’re wanting less to eat’. Catchy.