Song of the Day and a Free Mini-Rant

Song: Boy Named Sue

Artist: Johnny Cash

Album: (Single)

Year: 1969

Source: Radio Paradise.

Makes Me Think of & etc.: Bill, the DJ at Radio Paradise (when does he sleep?), prefaced Boy Named Sue with a short soliloquy about the way Top 40 radio used to be. His points were all valid, and his intro dated him just a bit, but that’s OK…I now have a little bit more insight into who he is and what makes him tick. Anyway, Top 40 used to be “non-genre-specific,” to coin a phrase. In other words, if it was popular (on the charts), Top 40 radio played it, no matter if it was jazz (Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Winds”), soul (James BROWN!), rock (Elvis), or country (Cash). You heard a great deal of variety in the way-back. Bill further went on to tell us he hated country music back in the day, but that’s not unusual… all us hipsters hated it coz it was SO uncool. Yet, he says, he always listened to, and enjoyed, Boy Named Sue. "Ditto," says Your Humble Scribe. There you have it: The Power of Johnny Cash, able to overcome even Terminal Hipness.

Lyrics:

My daddy left home when I was three
And he didn't leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me "Sue."

Well, he must o' thought that is quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk,
It seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named "Sue."

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.
But I made a vow to the moon and stars
That I'd search the honky-tonks and bars
And kill that man who gave me that awful name.

Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July
And I just hit town and my throat was dry,
I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
There at a table, dealing stud,
Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me "Sue."

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old,
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold
And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' How do you do!
Now your gonna die!!"

Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes
And he went down, but to my surprise,
He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
But I busted a chair right across his teeth
And we crashed through the wall and into the street
Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell ya, I've fought tougher men
But I really can't remember when,
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
He went for his gun and I pulled mine first,
He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.

And he said: "Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you'd have to get tough or die
And it's the name that helped to make you strong."

He said: "Now you just fought one hell of a fight
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me, before I die,
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you "Sue.'"

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my pa, and he called me his son,
And I came away with a different point of view.
And I think about him, now and then,
Every time I try and every time I win,
And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him
Bill or George! Anything but Sue! I still hate that name!

And now for the mini-rant. I listened to RP for a good portion of my day today. My ears perked up a bit when Bill played some song or other and back-announced it as “…off the sound track for The Motorcycle Diaries, which is a film about a motorcycle trip Che Guevara took through South America. It’s out on DVD now, and it’s a great film. Highly recommended.” (paraphrased) Oh, damn. Say WHAT? “A great film?” About a frickin’ unhinged Commie megalomaniac? Well, for an alternate take, go read this scathing review of said film. Actually, it’s more than a film review, it’s serious social commentary on the “Cult of Che.” Sample:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.

The present-day cult of Che—the T-shirts, the bars, the posters—has succeeded in obscuring this dreadful reality. And Walter Salles' movie The Motorcycle Diaries will now take its place at the heart of this cult.

There’s a lot more in this vein, in addition to a straight-up critique of the movie, but perhaps you get my point. At any rate, I encourage you to read the whole thing. On with our tale/rant.

That was Bill's first shot across my bow. The second came later when he strung the following three songs together:

2:23 pm - The Guess Who - American Woman
2:21 pm - Randy Newman - Political Science
2:18 pm - RX - Imagine / Walk On The Wild Side

If you’re familiar with these songs, you know the messages contained therein are all blatantly anti-American. Good tunes, bad messages. I can live with that; I actually like “Political Science,” Randy Newman is an excellent satirist. But Bill totally pissed me off when he delivered a commentary on “American Woman” that said (once again, paraphrased) “I first thought the song was about a girl, then on second or third hearing I realized it was radical Canadian anti-American propaganda and thought ‘Cool! Another reason to like the song.’”

Oh Shit, Oh Dear. This not 48 hours after I so generously gave them my Master Card number and the authorization to hit it for a support donation. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I can take this sort of stuff, in small doses. It doesn’t mean I agree with the sentiments, or condone them. Quite the contrary. The music mix is good enough, superior to anything I’ve heard in the past five or ten years, actually, that I’m willing to overlook the occasional moonbat rant. And it’s Bill’s station, so he can say whatever the Hell he wants to. This is America. But the minute the frickin’ Che tee shirts or “Public Service Announcements” for MoveOn appear on the web site, I’m voting with my feet and will consider my lil donation as just another lousy investment. I do have limits.

I kicked off a lil bit of a dust up in the comments section to “American Woman.” You can read it by clicking the link to American Woman, above. I wasn’t alone.

So. Bottom line: I don’t like Bill’s politics, but I LOVE his station. Radio Paradise remains highly recommended. For now.