Song · Johnny Cash
“A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash
Released 1971
“A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash appears on 5 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 2001 and 2025. It was first released in 1971. Its best result is #424 on the WYEP Top 500 Songs Countdown. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,033 indie & aaa song of all time.
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Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue," but Johnny Cash made it his own, and he did it the hard way: live and in concert inside California's San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969, with the tapes rolling for his At San Quentin album. Cash kept fooling with the song onstage, too; by the time he hit Madison Square Garden that December, he was working comic variations into it.
The prison recording turned into the biggest Hot 100 hit Cash ever had and his lone trip into that chart's top ten, stuck at No. 2 for three weeks in 1969 while the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" squatted on the throne. The country and easy listening charts put up no such fight: it went all the way to the top of both, and the RIAA certified it Gold that August.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 1861 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2004 | 719 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2004) | 885 |
| 2012 | 424 | WYEP | WYEP Top 500 Songs Countdown | 500 |
| 2018 | 479 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs | 892 |
| 2025 | 685 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Mood Booster Songs | 800 |
Also listed as: Boy Named Sue.
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