Escape (The Parenthetical Country Song Title Countdown #1): I'm Throwing Rice (At the Girl That I Love)

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Time to close the parentheses on this series! Thanks to @teamfreak16 I've been looking at my ten favorite rock and country songs with parenthetical titles. And, for the top of country list, I'm going way, way back to a classic by a classic. Here's my favorite country song with a parenthetical title. #1: I'm Throwing Rice (At the Girl That I Love) - Eddy Arnold Garth Brooks had nothing on Eddy Arnold. And I mean nothing. From 1947 until 1949, Eddy Arnold songs were #1 for 115 out of 121 weeks. Even the Beatles couldn't accomplish THAT! In the Joel Whitburn book of Billboard country singles, Eddy Arnold is #1. To give you some indication of what a feat that is, number two is George Jones, and #3 is George Strait. I mean, this guy was gigantic in country music. And that started in 1943, when he was the lead singer for Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys. He left (replaced by Cowboy Copas briefly, then Redd Stewart). He struck out on his own in the mid-40s. Fueled by the sound of Little Roy Wiggins' steel guitar (one of the most unmistakable sounds in country music), Eddy Arnold struck a chord with post-War country music fans. That continued for over twenty years, when Arnold was part of the "Nashville Sound," scoring a major crossover hit with "Make the World Go Away." In 1966 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame; the next year, he won the inaugural CMA "Entertainer of the Year" (only two others have won "entertainer of the year" after their Hall of Fame induction: Strait and Brooks). I got to meet him about a year before he died. He was the keynote speaker at the country music conference's panel. Although he had hearing problems and obvious memory problems (his wife died of Alzheimer's about a month before he did), it was still a treat. And so is this song, a gorgeous pained ballad about a man who has a girlfriend who turns out to marry his best friend ("she was my gal, he was my pal, but she loved him better somehow"). What a song. What a singer. What a career. Thanks for reading. I'm Throwing Rice (At the Girl That I Love) Written by Eddy Arnold, Steve Nelson and Ed Nelson, Jr. Recorded by Eddy Arnold Released as a single, 1949 I stepped aside: