![]() ![]() While another song, “San Quentin”, was expected to be the major new song featured in the concert and subsequent album (so much so the album includes two performances of “San Quentin”), “A Boy Named Sue” ended up being the concert’s major find.Ĭash also performed it on his own musical variety show, ending the song with the line, “And if I ever have a son, I think I’m gonna name him… John Carter Cash”, referring to his newborn son. According to Cash biographer Robert Hilburn, neither the British TV crew filming the concert nor his band knew he planned to perform the song he used a lyric sheet on stage while Perkins and the band improvised the backing on the spot. The rough, spontaneous performance with sparse accompaniment was included in the Johnny Cash At San Quentin album, ultimately becoming one of Cash’s biggest hits. Cash was surprised at how well the song went over with the audience. It was included in that concert to try it out-he did not know the words and on the filmed recording he can be seen regularly referring to a piece of paper. In his autobiography, Cash wrote that he had just received the song and only read over it a couple of times. With his lesson learned, Sue closes the song with a promise to name his son “Bill or George, anything but Sue”. Learning this, Sue makes peace with his father and they reconcile. Because Sue’s father knew that he would not be there for his son, he gave him the name, believing (correctly) that the ensuing ridicule would force him to “get tough or die”. After the two have beaten each other almost senseless, Sue’s father admits that he is the “heartless hound” that named him Sue and explains that the name was given as an act of love. Sue later locates his father at a tavern in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, during the middle of a summer season, and confronts him by saying, “My name is Sue! How do you do? Now you’re gonna die!” This results in a vicious brawl that spills outdoors into a muddy street. Angered by the embarrassment and abuse that he endures in his life, he swears that he will find and kill his father for giving him “that awful name”. Because of this, Sue grows up tough and mean, and smartens up very quickly, though he frequently relocates due to the shame his name gives him. The song tells the tale of a young man’s quest for revenge on a father who abandoned him at three years of age and whose only contribution to his entire life was naming him Sue, commonly a feminine name, which results in the young man suffering from ridicule and harassment by everyone he meets in his travels. Silverstein’s own recording was released the same year as “Boy Named Sue”, a single on the album Boy Named Sue (and His Other Country Songs), produced by Chet Atkins and Felton Jarvis. The track also topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts that same year and was certified Gold on August 14, 1969, by the RIAA. 2 in 1969, held out of the top spot by “Honky Tonk Women” by The Rolling Stones. The live San Quentin version of the song became Cash’s biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his only top ten single there, spending three weeks at No. Cash also performed the song (with comical variations on the original performance) in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden. Cash recorded the song live in concert on Februat California’s San Quentin State Prison for his At San Quentin album. ![]() “A Boy Named Sue” is a song written by humorist and poet Shel Silverstein and made popular by Johnny Cash. “One song, in particular, has been largely responsible for the success I’ve had lately –– Shel wrote A Boy named Sue.This day in 1969, Johnny Cash climbed to #1 on the Billboard country chart with “A Boy Named Sue.” Johnny Cash would later have Shel Silverstein on The Johnny Cash Show where he would sing him the following praise… The next day, Cash was leaving for San Quentin prison and his wife, June, talked him into taking the lyrics with him.Ī few days later, Cash would perform the song to the inmates at San Quentin and to his surprise, the inmates would go wild. ![]() So much so, that he asked him to write them down. The story goes that one night Cash threw a party at his home in Hendersonville, TN where Kris Kristofferson played Me and Bobby McGee, Joni Mitchell played Both Sides Now, Graham Nash played Marrakesh Express, Bob Dylan played Lay Lady Lay and Shel Silverstein played A Boy Named Sue. His hand was responsible for writing what would become Johnny Cash’s highest-grossing single of all time… A Boy Named Sue. Silverstein wrote songs for country music icons the likes of Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Buck Owens and Loretta Lynn. While the planet remembers Shel Silverstein as a children’s book author, he was a damn good songwriter too. ![]()
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