Shel Silverstein contributed to Playboy starting in 1956, wrote awesome children’s books, such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, and a song for Johnny Cash (the video of the song is at the end of this post).
For the kiddies, Shel wrote inspirational, heady stuff like this:
Listen to the MUSTN’TS child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child
ANYTHING can be.
And then, for Playboy, he wrote stuff like Topless Town, a poem about a restaurant that discovers the way to make big $ is for the waitresses to go topless.
And, then, he wrote A Boy Named Sue for Johnny Cash! (which is CRAZY! I didn’t know that, and I’m kinda obsessed with Cash). Here’s Shel and Johnny:
5 responses so far ↓
1 Susan Kishner // Jul 7, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Where did you get your blog layout from? I’d like to get one like it for my blog.
2 Jessica // Jul 7, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Very cool Sheryl, I like Shel Silverstien!
3 sheryllana // Jul 7, 2008 at 8:44 pm
For the curious like Susan, the layout is Cutline 3-Column Split 1.1 by Chris Pearson
You can download it at http://themes.wordpress.net/columns/3-columns/4415/cutline-3-column-split-11/
Have fun!
4 Alfredo // Jul 7, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Even cooler is that he wrote the lyrics and music for The Cover of the Rolling Stone covered by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show. For some strange reason, it’s one of my favorites songs…
5 Yvonne // Jul 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm
There are a couple of “for adults only” books of his poetry out there. I had no idea he wrote for adults until I was wandering around Barnes and Noble and happened across one of the books. I peeked in the book and was hooked. I love his children’s stuff (is it REALLY for children?), but the adult stuff had me laughing out loud.
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