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The fact that the famous Johnny Cash tune "A Boy Named Sue" was written by the prolific and imaginative author Shel Silverstein (1930-99) strongly suggests that the song is fictional. While Shel Silverstein is better known for his children's books, he managed to pen over 800 songs for the adult market. Banned Width: Celebrating the Adult Side of Shel Silverstein documents this work, and includes a little-known sequel called "Father of the Boy Named Sue." The recording begins with this introduction: 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. After reading the lyrics to the sequel, we think it's pretty safe to say the song sprung from Silverstein's fertile
imagination rather than any real-life situation.
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