The Father of a Boy Named Sue

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Name = The Father Of A Boy Named Sue


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Artist = Shel Silverstein
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Misc ="The Father of a Boy Named Sue" is a song by Shel Silverstein, written years after and as a sequel to his song "A Boy Named Sue", which had been popularized by Johnny Cash's 1969 performance at San Quentin Prison.

Origin

In the opening of the song, Silverstein explains why he wrote it:

Okay...now years ago, I wrote a song named "A Boy Named Sue," and that was okay and everything, except then I started to think about it, and I thought, "It is unfair. I am looking at the whole thing from the poor kid's point of view." And as I get more older and more fatherly, I begin to look at things from an old man's point of view. So... I decided to give the old man equal time. Okay. Here we go.

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Where "A Boy Named Sue" presents a story of a confident, physically dominant, and aggressive "Sue," the sequel, in the vein of tall tales, makes the boy's father tougher, meaner, and more masculine, and portrays Sue as a parody of weakness and femininity.