a Boy Named Sue

"A Boy Named Sue" is a country song, written by Shel Silverstein and made famous by Johnny Cash.

It tells the preposterous yet moving tale of a young man's quest for revenge on the father who gave him the name Sue, traditionally a girl's name. At the climax of the song, when Sue finds and faces his father, he learns that he was given the name "Sue" as an act of love, a way of making sure he grew up strong, his absent father being unable to protect him. He forgives his father and they have an emotional reconciliation. In the last lines, Sue says, "And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him . . . Bill or George, any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!"

Johnny Cash was at the height of his popularity when he recorded this song live at the notorious San Quentin State Prison in California. The concert was recorded for broadcast by Granada Television on February 24, 1969 for the Johnny Cash At San Quentin album, it shot to #1 on the Country Charts and #2 on the Pop Charts in the U.S. Years later Silverstein wrote a follow-up named "The Father of a Boy Named Sue" in which he tells the old man's point of view of the story.^{[citation needed]}

Late 1960s public decorum being what it was, compared with the 21st century, the line "I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you Sue!" was censored in the Radio version to leave the line to the listeners imagination, and the final line was edited to take out the "damn". Both the edited and unedited versions are available on various CDs.

The song has an unusual A-A-C B-B-C rhyme scheme, broken only to mark the dramatic midpoint and comic ending, and is full of vivid images such as "he kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile". The song is mostly recitation rather than conventional singing.

Inspiration

The core story of the song was inspired by humorist Jean Shepherd a close friend of Shel Silverstein who was often taunted as a child because of his feminine sounding name.^[1]

The title might have been inspired by the male attorney Sue K. Hicks of Madisonville, Tennessee, a friend of John Scopes who agreed to be a prosecutor in the Scopes Trial.^{[citation needed]} Sue was named after his mother who died after giving birth to him.^{[citation needed]} However, while this may have inspired Silverstein to write the poem, there may have been another reason why Johnny Cash recorded it. Johnny Cash was a fan of popular western novelist, Zane Grey, whose first name at birth was Pearl.^{[citation needed]}

Cover versions

German comedian and singer/songwriter Mike Krüger recorded the song as early as 1975 in a German language version called, "Ein Junge namens Susi (A boy named Susi)."

In 1999 American singer/musician Joshua James covered the song on the album Tanked Up and Derailed. It was done in a style known a Psychobilly. Though it had moderate sales, it failed to chart in the United States.

In 2004 the Dutch (Zeeuws-Brabantse) band Bennie Hek en De Houdoe's covered the song. They sang it in their own dialect (Zeeuws) and named it, "Un hast die a Truus heet (A boy named Truus)."

Belgian cabaret singer Wouter Deprez made a West-Flamisch version of the song in 2005. That song has the name, "An jonge genoamd An (A boy named An)".

Belgian cabaret duet Kommil Foo released a Dutch cover version called, "Man genaamd Marianne (A Man Named Marianne)," in 2006.

Legacy in popular culture

In the 1996 movie Swingers, featuring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, the character Sue played by Patrick Van Horn is said to have been named by a father who was an obsessive Cash fan.

References

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