On May 5th, 1925, John Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher intentionally violated the Butler Act which made it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals” the male attorney Sue K. 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. Sue was named after his mother who died after giving birth to him.[1]
Shel Silverstein, famous poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children's books who sometimes styled himself as Uncle Shelby, especially for his early children's books, and a close friend conspired late in 1968 on a new song which developed the story about the trials and tribulations of a boy growing up in the early thirties with a first name of Sue.
Shel’s story 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!"
On February 24, 1969 Johnny Cash who was at the height of his popularity when he recorded this song live at San Quentin State Prison in California. 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.[1]
In his autobiography Cash wrote that he had just received the song and only read over it a couple of times and it was his wife June Carter Cash who encouraged her husband to perform the song which was included in that concert to try it out; he didn't know the words and on the filmed recording, he can be seen regularly referring to a piece of paper. Cash was surprised at how well the song went over with the audience – 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.
I prepared this article at the request of George Spink the moderator of the Palomar big band blog and webmaster of the Tuxedo Junction big band website who had asked me to do a piece about this song as it is one of his favorite Country music pieces. So this is dedicated to George Spink who has just returned home after a three week stay in the hospital for a heart bypass operation as a welcome home piece! Thanks George it was fun!
Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
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[1]Wikipedia
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