The father of a boy named Sue    (video)

 

Okay now, years ago I wrote a song called “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 !

 

              C

1. Yeah, I left home when the kid was three,

               F

    and it sure felt good to be fancy free,

                      G                                                         C

    though I knew it wasn't quite the fatherly thing to do.

                  C

    But that kid kept screamin' and throwin' up,

            F

    and pissin' in his pants till I had enough,

          G                                                            C

    so just for revenge I went and named him Sue. Yeah.

 

                 C

2. It was Gatlinberg in mid July,

                F

    I was gettin' drunk but gettin' by,

G                                                       C

    gettin' old and goin' from bad to worse,

                C

    when thru the door with an awful scream

                       F

    comes the ugliest queen I've ever seen,

          G

    he says, “My name is Sue, how do you do ?

      - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -      - C

    Then he hits me with his purse.

 

              C

3. Now this ain't the way he tells the tale,

                    F

    but he scratched my face with his fingernails,

                         G                                                                              C

    and then he bit my thumb and kicked me with his high-heeled shoe.

            C

    So I hit him in the nose and he started to cry,

                    F

    and he threw some perfume in my eye.

                G                                                             C

    and it sure ain't easy fightin' with a boy named Sue.

 

            C

4. So I hit him in the head with a caned-back chair,

                     F

    and he screamed, “Hey, Dad, you mussed my hair !”

                 G                                                                             C

    And he hit me in the navel and knocked out a piece of my lint.

                    C

    He was spittin' blood, I was spittin' teeth,

                    F

    and we crashed through the wall and out into the street,

     G                                                                    - - - - - - - - - - - - -   C

 a kickin’ and gougin' in the mud and the blood and the creme de menth.

 

               C

5. Then out of his garter he pulls a gun,

               F

    I'm about to get shot by my very own son,

                 G                                                              C

    he's screamin' bout Sigmund Freud and lookin' grim uh.

         C

    So I thought fast and I told him some stuff,

               F

    how I named him Sue just to make him tough,

               G                                                                   C

    and I guess he bought it 'cause now I'm livin' with him.

 

                      C

6. Yeah, he cooks and sews and cleans up the place,

           F

    he cuts my hair and shaves my face,

           G                                                                    C

    and irons my shirts better than a daughter could do.

            C

    And on the nights that I can't score,

             - F

    well,         I can't tell you anymore,

G                                                          C

    sure is a joy to have a boy named Sue.

                   G                                                                      C

    Yeah, a son is fun, but it's a joy to have a boy named Sue.

 

    (Shel Silverstein)