Hey! We were promised a concert! Don’t make us take your ass to the shower room!
If you love songs that are just as fucked up as The Nest is… well, then you’re probably happy that it’s Monday! That means it’s time to press play on another musical curiosity in our Top 30 Novelty Songs of All Time countdown! DJ Scratchy’s gonna be doing hard time today entertaining the bad boys from death row, while the Sponkies….. well, they decided to just stay home and work on their anti-bullying campaign….
#22. “A Boy Named Sue” – Johnny Cash
Six months before that other famous concert that took place on Yasgur’s farm, The Man in Black held a rather legendary concert of his own from within the confines of California’s notorious San Quentin Prison in February 1969. The gritty setting of a maximum security penitentiary where some of the state’s most violent criminals were being forcibly housed may not sound like the place you’d expect a country legend to debut what is arguably the most whimsical song of his storied career… but one of your rewards for being a murderer in the 1960’s was being among the first people to hear Johnny Cash perform what became his biggest pop hit…
“A Boy Named Sue” was written by Shel Silverstein, yet has become one of Cash’s signature songs thanks in large part to the immense popularity it received as a humorous novelty. According to legend, Cash decided to include “Sue” in his San Quentin set list on a whim, neglecting to inform even his bandmates who had to improvise the backing music while Cash mostly read the lyrics he’d neglected to memorize from a sheet of paper. It was a rather odd set of circumstances that led to Johnny Cash’s only Top 10 Billboard hit that sat at #2 for three weeks…
My name’s Sue! How do you do?
The comical tale of a boy who has to endure the world’s scorn for having a feminine first name would probably not be as well received in 2018 as it was fifty years ago due to it now being some sort of federal crime to make fun of someone for any reason. But we can still come to respect how the estranged father and son come together despite the deadbeat dad’s ill advised method of toughening up his spawn that nearly got him killed. And we can also appreciate the still ever present reality that parents really, REALLY need to think twice before they saddle their poor kids with some really stupid name they think is hip or clever that’s probably just going to get them beat up later in life…
I’m gonna kill that mangy dog that named me Dweezil!
The next song in the countdown is a repeat of a previous Monday Music entry, so it will be posted next Tuesday while a fresh edition of Mecca Muzak Monday will be found on The Nest next week. Make sure to program your VCR’s accordingly….
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I liked this song… it reminds me of a guy we had in school… his name was heino-maria … he was not interesting, but I bet his parents were ;O)))
I guess that’s better than being named Gonorrhea or Marijuana…
mary-huana is not bad LOL
Interesting back story on this song by the man in black. Happy Monday!
That was all knowledge I added to my brain as well. I wouldn’t have guessed this one started in San Quentin…
I think the Man in Black liked to live dangerously at times.
with some of the names I’m hearing kids getting in today’s world; I have to wonder also, what their peers will be saying once they’re in school….
:)♥
It will be even funnier in about 100 years when all those weird, trendy baby names from today become associated with old people like George and Edna are now…
Love this song. Don’t tell anyone but mom used to date a guy named August…. her name being June it was always a hoot! XOXO – Bacon
I guess you’re lucky mom didn’t name you October or something like that!
Thank goodness for small favors, right? XOXO – Bacon
I always like Johnny Cash and I loved him best when he sang with his wife. The two of them together were wonderful. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t live long after she passed. I think she was his reason for living.
Boy Named Sue was a funny song. I liked it until the played it for the 10,000 time and by then, I had gotten REALLY tired of it 🙂
Any song, no matter how good it is, can’t possibly stand up to thousands of replays. It’s just impossible. I wish the corporate run radio stations of today would take that into consideration when they craft their extremely narrow and very similar playlists…
I usually hate songs where they talk the lyrics instead of sing them but it sounds good when Johnny Cash does it!
A lot of the old country singers could pull that off. In fact, you just made me think of “Big Bad John,” which I haven’t heard in ages!
There’s a 90’s band called Cake whose lead singer talked the lyrics more than he sang them, and it worked out well. That was a weird band that also had a full time trumpet player too!
Big Bad John! I haven’t heard that in ages either! I’m going to have to visit YouTube to listen to that today.
I don’t remember Cake. I’ll have to look that up as well. I’m sure there are many exceptions to my no talking the lyrics rule.
I had no idea Shel Silverstein wrote this. Makes sense. Good choice.
I swear, I think he wrote everything weird back then!
If you look at some of the things celebrities are naming their kids these days, “Sue” is actually rather tame, even for a boy.
That’s true. At least those kids will grow up mean and strong so they can properly punch out the paparazzi….
I always hated that song! My mother was a big fan of his. She listened to Ring of Fire all the time when I was little. I preferred that over “Sue”.
Damn! I was trying to think of what Johnny Cash’s best known song was, and I didn’t even think of Ring of Fire. That would probably be it, though Sue was his biggest pop hit. I like this one for its comedy, other than that, I can take or leave Cash’s style of music. It’s OK, but nothing I’d go out of my way to listen to…
That’s it exactly. What I heard as a kid was more than enough!