Road Scholar - Lee Roy Parnell

Country Doesn't Mean Sad

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH9_rzQbRbQ]

I've posted one of Parnell's songs previously of which I'm sure, and I've probably done a couple. He has a lot of blues influence in his music, and it's one of the things I really like about his style. However, here's another country tune that there's not reason to have the blues about. It's a song about getting an "education" somewhere other than the classroom. Even though I've spent plenty of time sitting in front of professor's droning on and on about different topics, I feel like I've picked up a lot along the way "on the road", which coincidentally, is a title of one of Parnell's other hits.

It's also a cool play on the idea of being a rhodes scholar. The term refers to an award given to international students by Oxford University. It was named after Cecil John Rhodes. There's a lot of clever lyrics in the song. I'm particularly fond of the reference to his teacher's being "a killer and a hound-dog man", obviously referencing Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. The above version is a shortened awards show performance of the song with co-writer, Delbert McClinton. The full version is easy to find, too, though.