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. Hicks was named after his mother, who died after giving birth to him. Hicks of Madisonville, Tennessee, a friend of John Scopes who agreed to be a prosecutor in what was to become known as the " Scopes Monkey Trial". The title might also have been inspired by the male attorney Sue K. The core story of the song was inspired by humorist Jean Shepherd, a close friend of Silverstein, who was often taunted as a child because of his feminine-sounding name. Silverstein does not utter any profanity in his original version, with Sue's father instead identifying himself as the "heartless hound" that named him Sue. The unedited version of the original San Quentin performance is included on later reissues of the At San Quentin album and on Cash's posthumous The Legend of Johnny Cash album. When performing the song live in later performances (such as in April 1970 at the White House and in 1994 at the Glastonbury Festival, for example), Cash would himself utter a bleep-censor sound in lieu of the word. The term "son of a bitch" was edited to "son of a gun" or altogether bleeped out in some versions. Both the edited and unedited versions are available on various albums and compilations. The term "son of a bitch" in the line "I'm the son of a bitch that named you Sue!" was bleeped out in the Johnny Cash version both on the single and the At San Quentin album, and the final line was also edited to remove the word "damn". The song is performed mostly in the speech-like style of talking blues rather than conventional singing. The song has an unusual AABCCB rhyme scheme, broken only to mark the midpoint and ending. Sue closes the song conceding his father's point of view, but that if he ever has a son, he will name the boy "Bill, or George, any damn thing but Sue" because he "still hate(s) that name." Learning this, Sue makes peace and reconciles with his father. Because Sue's father knew that he would not be there for his son, he gave him the name as an act of tough love, believing (correctly) that the ensuing ridicule would force him to "get tough or die". As the two pull their guns on each other, Sue's father smiles with pride and admits that he is the man ("son of a bitch" in the Johnny Cash version) that named him Sue. Sue later locates his father at a tavern one summer day in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and after recognizing him by the scar on his cheek and his evil eye 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. Ashamed of his name, he becomes a hard-hearted nomad as a young man he swears that he will find and kill his father for giving him "that awful name". 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 giving him a guitar and naming him Sue, commonly a feminine name, which results in the young man suffering from ridicule and harassment by everyone he meets. 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 Easy Listening 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 February 24, 1969, at California's San Quentin State Prison for his At San Quentin album. " A Boy Named Sue" is a song written by humorist, children's author, and poet Shel Silverstein and made popular by Johnny Cash. From the album Boy Named Sue (and His Other Country Songs)
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