I got all choked up and I threw down my gun,Īnd I came away with a different point of viewĮvery time I tried, every time I win and if IĮver have a son I think I am gonna name him In your eye because I'm the nut that named you Sue." Got the right to kill me now and I wouldn't blame youīefore I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit Helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you've Yeah, he said, "Now you have just fought one That name that helped to make you strong." So I gave you that name and I said 'Goodbye'. He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile.Īnd he said, "Son, this world is rough and ifĪ man's gonna make it, he's gotta be toughĪnd I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along. He went for his gun and I pulled mine first. I heard him laughin' and then I heard him cussin', He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile. I tell you I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when. The wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went downīut to my surprise he came up with a knifeĪnd cut off a piece of my ear. Now you're gonna die." Yeah, that's what I told him. Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dadįrom a worn-out picture that my mother hadĪnd I knew the scar on his cheek and his evil eye.Īnd I looked at him and my blood ran cold,Īnd I said, "My name is Sue. I'd thought I'd stop and have myself a brew.Īnd at a table dealing stud sat the dirty, I'd search the honky-tonks and bars and killīut it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I had Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,īut I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean. I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue. It seems I had to fight my whole life through.Īnd some guy would laugh and I'd bust his head, Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,Īnd it got lots of laughs from a lot of folks, Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,īut the meanest thing that he ever did was Just this old guitar and a bottle of booze. Well, my daddy left home when I was three, Here are the lyrics to the story-song "A Boy Named Sue": Now while it seems foolish for a psychologist to correct a Pulitzer-prize winning historian on a matter of history, I do want to comment on the history Ed gave about the song "A Boy Named Sue." I know a bit about Cash in light of the research I did for my recent The Theology of Johnny Cash series. The song in question is "A Boy Named Sue," popularized by Johnny Cash and first sung by Cash on the At San Quentin album. Since Cash made the song famous, it’s been covered by a number of artists, including Miley Cyrus.Following up on yesterday's post about the Tokens Show in Dayton just a historical note about a song Lee Camp sang during the show and Ed Larson's commentary about the origins of that song. And Silverstein was said to have shown Cash and Carter the song one day during a “Guitar Pull,” or a session where songwriters traded around the instrument, each playing one of their songs before passing it to the next. The title itself, some say, may have been inspired by a famous male lawyer, Sue K. And, Sue says, if he ever has a son, he’s going to name him… Bill! Or George! Anything but Sue! And the San Quentin folks roar again.Īccording to legend, the meaning of the song lyrics was likely inspired by writer and humorist Jean Shepherd, a friend of Silverstein’s, who would be taunted by peers as a kid for his feminine name. They understand each other in a new light, finally. Though, the men at San Quentin loved it in real-time, to be sure. The curse word in the second to last line-“son of a bitch”-are bleeped out in the recording. He recognizes his son and in the lyrics, tells him what he’d done and why he’d done it: ![]() The two crash through a wall and into the street. And he said, My name is Sue! How do you do! Now you’re going to die! Sue punches the old man, who comes up slicing him with a knife. He knew it from a picture his mom used to have. The “dirty, mangy dog” who’d named him Sue. One day, Sue finds his father in a saloon in Gatlinburg, Tennesee. He would find his father, the man who gave him that awful name, and he would kill him when he did. Sue had to go from town to town to hide my shame. Life is hard, so what better way to get used to that and even give yourself an advantage than to take on a silly, laughable name. No, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue.īut- aha!-that was just the point. That act made Sue grow up fighting his whole life through. It was the meanest thing he ever did, says the song’s narrator, Sue. ![]() The dad only left him and his mom a guitar and “an empty bottle of booze.” But he also left him with the name. As the story in the song goes, the man named Sue was abandoned by his father at three years old.
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