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One For The Road: Johnny Cash And Shel Silverstein

By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 24, 2012 11:30PM

Sunday is Johnny Cash's 80th birthday, so don your finest black suit. Here is a video of Cash performing "Boy Named Sue" on The Johnny Cash Show in 1970 alongside Chicago's own Shel Silverstein. Surely you know Silverstein's writing, but did you also know he's the sonuvabitch that wrote "Boy Named Sue"?

After singing a bit of the song together, Silverstein does a song called "Daddy, What If" on his own. It's a little weird, a little cute and a little sappy just like so many Silverstein poems. And somehow that's exactly what his voice sounds like, too.