A Boy Named Sue
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.
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
It 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. The name was the cause of endless ridicule as the young man was growing up.
As the years went on, Sue grew big, strong and fearsome from all the fights he got into with bullies.
At the climax of the song, Sue finds and confronts his father, and the two get into 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.
Censored
Late 1960s public decorum being what it was, 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
Some uncensored albums:
The Legend of Johnny Cash
At San Quentin (The Complete 1969 Concert)
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 the Scopes Trial. Johnny Cash was a fan of popular western novelist, Zane Grey, whose first name at birth was "Pearl".
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. (He can be seen on the video regularly referring to a piece of paper.) He was surprised at how well the song went over with the audience – which is why this rough, spontaneous performance with sparse accompaniment was included in the Johnny Cash At San Quentin album, ultimately becoming one of Cash's biggest hits.
Cover versions
French singer Joe Dassin made a french version of this song called "Un garçon nommé Suzy" in the album "L'Amerique" 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.
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.
References in popular culture
The Salem, Oregon band Boy Named Sue gets their name from the Johnny Cash version of the song.
The 1992 song Crackerman by Stone Temple Pilots features the lines: Trippin' as I'm thinkin' 'Bout a boy, his name was Sue.
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.
A 2001 documentary, A Boy Named Sue, whose protagonist is transgender, takes the song's name and incorporates it in the soundtrack.
The song is mentioned in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
It is also mentioned in the Jimmy Neutron episode "The Great Egg Heist".
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
The character Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory was born with the name Susan. An episode of the series is titled "A Boy Named Susan".
Jane Morgan recorded Martin Mull's parody "A Girl Named Johnny Cash" in 1970.
Warren Fox told the song to his foster brother Spencer to toughen him up in British soap opera Hollyoaks.
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