What Do Johnny Cash and a Children’s Poet Have in Common?

By THC Staff | February 17, 2016

 

When you were a child, did you ever read Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends? Well, if not, you’re a Shel Silverstein fan if you love “A Boy Named Sue”.

You may be asking why, and that’s because it was actually written by the children’s author and poet, Shel Silverstein. He even released it on his own Boy Named Sue (and His Other Country Songs) album. So how did Johnny Cash come to play it?

Cash received the song and didn’t care for it too much, but he listened to his beautiful wife, June Carter Cash, and decided to try it out at a concert anyways. The crowd went wild for the story and Cash’s own singing of it, as wise June knew they would, and a hit was born. It was included on Johnny Cash at San Quentin, and rose to the Billboard Top 100 charts.

While it never landed him the prestigious No. 1 spot, he held out securely at No. 2 with “A Boy Named Sue”, just behind The Rolling Stone’s “Honky Tonk Women”. It was his highest Billboard Top 100 hit in his career.

Watch him perform it in Denmark below, and you’ll wish you were there to see it live.