"A Boy Named Sue" is the greatest song about accepting your struggles, while also refusing to pass that trauma onto your children.

Paleobiology@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 223 points –

The greatest song about accepting your struggles as key to making you who you are, while also refusing to pass that generational trauma on to your own children, is Johnny Cash / Shel Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue”

*Bonus points for implicitly understanding the trauma of being misgendered.

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You should listen to the second song, then. Might change your perspective.

Full disclosure: both were written by Shel Silversein, but Cash refused to perform the latter. This is pre-Where The Sidewalk Ends, mind you. This is The Great Smoke-Off era Silverstein.

edit: Here's Shel Silverstein performing "Father of A Boy Named Sue"

Yeah, "Father of a Boy Named Sue" Is really like "What if, instead of writing a good song, I make myself look like a hugely toxic, ignorant piece of shit by writing this song instead"

I'm not disagreeing with you, though that certainly sounds like your perspective was newly informed by this additional trivia.

I don't understand what you mean. This isn't new trivia. It's just a hugely problematic, incestuous, transphobic song

Holy fuck

... It doesn't even make sense. If Sue ends up choosing to live life as a flamboyant, gay drag queen then why is Sue pissed off at the dad in the first place? 🤔

The father-son/daughter incest was also an interesting choice.

Hmm that part really was the only thing that resonated with me.

Maybe that's yet another secret one finds where the sidewalk ends? 🤷🏼‍♂️