A Boy Named Sue

"A Boy Named Sue"
Song

"A Boy Named Sue" is a country song, written by Shel Silverstein and sung by Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash was at the height of his popularity when he recorded this song live at San Quentin State Prison in California. The concert was recorded for broadcast by Granada Television on February 24, 1969 and for the Johnny Cash At San Quentin album. Cash also performed the song (with comical variations on the original performance) in December, 1969, in concert at Madison Square Garden. The song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, spending three weeks at #2 in 1969; it also topped the country music and adult contemporary charts that same year.

Plot and reaction

The song tells the preposterous, yet moving, tale of a young man's quest for revenge on an absent father, whose only contribution to his entire life was naming him Sue, commonly a feminine name, which regularly resulted in the young man suffering from ridicule and bullying. Because of the bullying, Sue grows up tough and smartens up very quickly, though he must move to other towns constantly because of the shame his name gives him. Angered by this he swears he shall find and murder his father for giving him the accursed name.

Sue would later find his father and confront him, resulting in a vicious brawl. After the two have beaten each other almost senseless, Sue's father admits that the name was given to him as an act of love: because he knew he would not be there for his son, Sue's father gave him that name to make sure that he grew up strong. Learning this, Sue forgives his father and they have an emotional reconciliation.

With his lesson learned, Sue closes the song with an announcement: "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!"

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.

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.

Censorship

With the 1960s public decorum being more conservative, the term "son-of-a-bitch" in the line "I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you Sue!" was censored in the radio version, and the final line was edited to take out the "damn". Both the edited and unedited versions are available on various CDs.

Some censored albums:

• Essential Johnny Cash
• Johnny Cash - 16 Biggest Hits
• At San Quentin [Original LP release]

Some uncensored albums:

• The Legend of Johnny Cash
• At San Quentin (The Complete 1969 Concert) [Remaster]
• At San Quentin - Legacy Edition

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.

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 what was to become known as the Scopes Trial. Sue was named after his mother who died after giving birth to him.

In his autobiography Cash wrote that he had just received the song and only read over it a couple of times. It was included in that concert to try it out; he didn't know the words and on the filmed recording, he can be seen regularly referring to a piece of paper. Cash was surprised at how well the song went over with the audience – 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.

According to Shel Silverstein's biographer Mitch Myers, it was June Carter Cash who encouraged her husband to perform the song. Silverstein introduced it to them at what they called a "Guitar Pull," where musicians would pass a guitar around and play their songs.

Chart performance

Chart (1969)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	2
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Top Singles	3
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	1
U.K. Singles Chart	4

Cover versions

• French singer Joe Dassin made a French version of this song called "Un garçon nommé Suzy" in the album L'Amérique in 1970.
• 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 as Psychobilly. Though it had moderate sales, it failed to make the charts 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.
• Jan Rot has translated and covered the song in Dutch as "Mijn naam is Mien" (My name is Mien) for the album An en Jan gaan landelijk.
• Orthodox Jewish singer Country Yossi recorded a Jewish version of the song called "A Boy Named Zlateh".
• Pop punk band All covered "A Boy Named Sue", releasing it on the CD single for "Dot."
• Todd Snider covered the song on the 2010 Sugar Hill Records album Twistable Turnable Man, a tribute by various artists to Shel Silverstein.

French singer Sanseverino also made a French version of this song in the album "Les Faux Talbins", but which has the original title.

Impact on Popular Culture

The song's popularity has caused its title and content to be extensively mimicked, parodied, or played upon by other artists and musicians. Direct homage is paid to the song by the Salem, Oregon band Boy Named Sue, and Stone Temple Pilots reference the song in their 1992 song "Crackerman". Humorous homage is paid to the song in the 1996 flim Swingers, in which a character played by Patrick Van Horn is said to have been named Sue by a father who was an obsessive Cash fan. The song inspired Martin Mull's parody "A Girl Named Johnny Cash".

The title of the song is well-known enough to have become the subject of puns in the titles of other works, regardless of whether or not the derivative work has anything to do with Johnny Cash or the song itself. The cartoon series Dexter's Laboratory featured a character named Mandark whose birth name was Susan, and featured an episode entitled "A Boy Named Susan." UK Punk band Verbal Warning recorded a song called "A Ploy Named Sue" about the American no win-no fee compensation culture that has sprung up in the UK.

The gender-bending implications of the title have been adapted to explore issues of sex and gender, another use of the popular song title that goes beyond its original scope. The 2001 documentary, A Boy Named Sue features a transgender protagonist and uses the song in the soundtrack. A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music is the title of a 2004 book about the role of the gender in American country music.