Inspiration for Travis Tritt’s Hit Song “Country Club” Revealed

After songwriter Dennis Lord and his bandmates were subjected to what he felt was uncalled-for treatment while playing an event at an unnamed “snooty” country club in Kansas City, he remained resentful for several years—but then was inspired to write “I’m a member of a country club/Country music is what I love” after driving by another club in Nashville.

If it wasn’t for an unnamed “snooty” country club in Kansas City, Mo., The Tennessean of Nashville, Tenn., reported, country music star Travis Tritt wouldn’t have scored his first hit single, “Country Club,” in 1989, As part of an interview series with songwriters, Dennis Lord, who co-wrote the song with Catesby Jones, told The Tennessean that he never got over the way that he and his bandmates were treated while playing a gig at that club. And years later, while driving by Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, the signature lyrics from the hit song popped into his head: “I’m a member of a country club/ Country music is what I love.”

The story of how “Country Club” came to life was told by Lord this way to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International, as reported by The Tennessean:

Herbison: You wrote a dance song! So this idea came to you — well, tell the story.

Lord: Yeah well, actually, the motivating factor happened several years before I thought about doing it. I was in a band in Kansas City, Missouri, and we were playing at a country club and it was a very exclusive country club. During our breaks they would escort the band downstairs to this sort of dark room—no water, no drinks, no nothing, and tell us we had to stay there until the end of the break, then come back up.

Herbison: What? Did they not trust you guys?

Lord: I guess they didn’t want us mingling with the clientele. I asked everyone else in the band, “Doesn’t this bother you?” And nobody else was bothered by it.

Herbison: They just wanted to be paid.

Lord: They just wanted to be paid. Which I did too, but it really bothered me, so I never lost it. I never forgot about it. And I was actually driving down, years later – this was, oh my gosh, over a decade – I was driving down Hillsboro Road [in Nashville] and right there where Hillsboro Road and Old Hickory meet, before they widened it, I thought of this song.

Herbison: Is it because you could turn right and go to the Belle Meade Country Club?

Lord: Yeah, right! (laughs) I thought (of) “I’m a member of a country club” but I’ve got to get this second line right. And it took me a minute, but it became obvious, you know: “country music is what I love.” So I had about a verse and a chorus written for several months, and Catesby got a publishing deal and called me…

We spent the whole afternoon at his publisher’s office trying to come up with something, and we couldn’t come up with anything. It just wasn’t happening. And I said, “Well, I’ve got this verse and this chorus. I don’t know if this is any good.” Catesby threw his hands up and said, “Oh my gosh! We gotta write that.” So we finished (it) based on the story that I had experienced and put a couple more lines in the chorus, and worked with a publisher who guided us to be sure that we had the right stuff…(we) finished the song in about three or four months. It took us several rewrites.

Herbison: To me, that is just a genius (idea) for a country song…It’s one of those that tick off other songwriters, because it’s kind of obvious, but you’re the one that wrote it.

Lord: It came down from wherever it comes down from.

Herbison: Most writers, if it’s your first song and you don’t have a deal, anybody cutting anything is fine. But don’t tell me there’s not a lot of disappointment when they say, “Oh, there’s this new guy [Travis Tritt] that’s gonna cut it.” That nobody had ever heard of.

Lord: That was the case. I went, “Who’s that? Could we not pitch it to George Jones? Could we not pitch it to Hank [Williams] Jr? Somebody else?” Well, it couldn’t have turned out better, first of all. But it was Travis’s first cut, it was mine, it was Catesby’s, it was Mike Sebstain (who was the song plugger), it was his first cut, and it was Travis’s producer’s first cut. So, all five of us.

The complete lyrics of “Country Club,” which was released in August 1989 as the lead-off single and title track from Travis Tritt’s debut album of the same name are as follows (Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.):

I took a double take out on the interstate

When I saw her makin’ eyes at me

So I followed her down the clubhouse drive

Past the pool and the 18th green

And in the parkin’ lot

I said it’s mighty hot

Maybe I could buy you a beer

She said I’m glad you asked

But I’ll have to pass

‘Cause only members are allowed in here

And I said

I’m a member of a country club

Country music is what I love

I drive an old Ford pick-up truck

I do my drinkin’ from a Dixie cup

Hey I’m a bonafide dancin’ fool

I shoot a mighty mean game of pool

At any honky-tonk roadside pub

I’m a member of a country club

Lord, you look so invitin’

Thought it might be excitin’

For a woman with a limousine

To go bouncin’ around in a beat up truck

With a man in wore out jeans

It’s five o’clock before Friday night

Here’s where the fun begins

So don’t worry ’bout your reputation

‘Cause you can tell all your friends

I’m a member of a country club

Country music is what I love

I drive an old Ford pick-up truck

I do my drinkin’ from a Dixie cup

Hey I’m a bonafide dancin’ fool

I shoot a mighty mean game of pool

At any honky-tonk roadside pub

Well I’m a member of a country club

The music video of the song (along with Tritt’s fantastic mullet and his “pool cue” style of putting) can all be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBbvp_EeLhY