WEBVTT - Why Are Kids So Attracted to Shel Silverstein's Poetry? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.440 Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? So I know we're 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:04.840 both big fans of Shell Silverstein, But do you remember 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.560 this poem that was called Prayer of the Selfish Child? 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.000 You know that name sounds so familiar, but I don't 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.360 actually remember the exact words. How how to go? All right? 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.040 So this is one of my favorites. But it goes. Now. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.239 I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.200 my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.160 I pray the Lord my toys to break so none 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:28.040 of the other kids can use them. Amen. I love it. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.240 So I've spent countless hours over the years reading Silverstein 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.240 with both of my kids, and I'll never forget probably 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.760 I don't know, maybe like seven or eight years ago, 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.760 reading this poem with my daughter and just seeing her 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.080 get this little smirk on her face when I read 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.000 it to her, and it was as though she was thinking, Okay, 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.120 I know that's wrong, but I also get it and 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.319 it's pretty darn funny. Yeah. I think most kids can 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.680 identify with that feeling in some way, Like there's something 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.360 about Shell Silverstein's writing that allows us to be a 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.960 little dark or maybe a little naughty, But also really 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.640 silly at the same time. That's exactly it. So you 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.120 know what we we thought it was time to dedicate 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.760 an episode to one of our favorite children's authors to 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.040 talk about his fascinating and successful career well before he 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.039 was ever pushed into writing for kids, to hear what 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.000 he thought kids wanted to hear, and also how he 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:41.119 felt about happy endings. So let's dive ina. Hey there, 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.040 podcast listeners, Welcome to part time genius sim Will Pearson, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.760 And as always, I'm joined by my good friend Manges Ticketer. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.640 Of course, Mango is joining me today from the always 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.280 friendly Mouth Media Studios in New York City. And Mango, 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.200 you're missing this, but on the other side of the 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.960 soundproof glass building a sailboat with the wood from his 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.520 childhood apple tree. And I'm actually I'm kind of getting 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.320 choked up as I say this. That's our friend and 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.000 producer Tristan McNeil. And you know, I'm not sure what 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.400 far off place he plans on going with that, but 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.799 it must be a pretty important trip because I know 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.640 how much Tristan loved his old family apple. Excuse me, 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.160 I'm just I'm just getting choked up again. So I'm 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.200 wondering about this because I asked him a little earlier, 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:25.919 and it sounds like he just plans to tool around 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.400 the coast on the weekends, you know, like assuming he 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.960 ever gets this boat finished. Oh well, that that that 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.680 kind of took a dark turn from what I thought 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.359 it might be. But you know what, that that actually 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.840 might be appropriate for today's episode because Shell Silverstein was 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.679 certainly not your average Sachran sweet children's author. Now, most 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.040 people know him for his tongue twisting rhymes he penned 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.720 for childhood classics like Where the Sidewalk Ins and A 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.560 Light in the Attic, but they were also long and 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.000 varied parts of his career where most people they don't 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.720 really know what he was up to, including some fairly 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.400 unsavory stints as a playwright and a raunchy songwriter and 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.120 a cartoonist for Playboy of all places. So with these 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.560 different sides of the artists in mine, I thought we 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.600 should check out some of the lesser known stories from 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.160 Silverstein's life and you know, try to get a sense 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.320 of how he became one of the most beloved and 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.920 even most controversial writers of the twentieth century. Yeah, so, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.720 once he became famous as a children's author, details of 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.360 his earlier life and his other work kind of faded 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.880 from public consciousness. And another big reason why those stories 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.400 aren't so well known is that Shell Silverstein was also 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.120 a pretty private guy. Like he rarely gave interviews. He 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.040 never wrote a memoir or sat down with a biographer 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.800 or anything like that. And as a result, we really 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.720 don't know much about Shell's childhood, which is kind of 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.320 ironic given what he's known for. I mean, we know 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.080 the basics, right, like, we know he was born in 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.280 nineteen thirty to middle class Jewish family in Chicago, but 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.800 things actually get kind of hazy beyond that. Well, there's 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:53.920 at least one other thing we know for sure about 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.280 the young Shell Silverstein, and that is that he was 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.960 positively obsessed with the Chicago White Sox. In fact, in 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.360 a rare nineteen interview with Publishers Weekly, Silverstein said, when 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.840 I was a kid twelve to fourteen around there, I 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.800 would much rather have been a good baseball player or 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.320 a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.680 I couldn't dance. Luckily the girls didn't want me. Not 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:18.839 much I could do about that, so I started to 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.520 draw and write well. I mean, you've got to appreciate 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.520 his honesty, right, Like, not very many authors would admit 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.440 that a career writing was their plans c. I mean, 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.800 obviously after playing baseball and being a professional casanova. I guess. Well, 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.520 while Silverstein was a little too unathletic to turn pro 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.080 at either of those things, he did have one early 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.600 gig in professional sports, or at least in the same ballpark. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.400 And that's because he actually spent five years selling beer 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.599 and hot dogs at the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.320 Sox stadiums. And not only did that gig help pay 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.560 us way through school, it actually also gave him some 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.200 valuable life lessons. So, just as one example of this, 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.400 when a reporter asked him what he learned about people 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.560 from his time time as a hot dog vendor, Silverstein replied, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.200 I learned they like mustard and that they like a 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.720 hot bond. Did you know that if you steam the 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.480 bond first, they'll really like it? I mean, that's the 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:15.359 sort of wisdom you can't vibe. But speaking of Shell's schooling, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.400 he actually had a pretty tough go of things. So first, 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.200 he attended the University of Illinois, but was quickly kicked 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.680 out due to his bad grades. And then he tried 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.720 the Art Institute of Chicago, where he wound up dropping 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.760 out after about a year. And lastly he went to 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.160 Roosevelt University, which is also in Chicago. I guess he 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.080 studied English for a full three years there. And this 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.599 last attempt at college life at Roosevelt was probably the 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.479 most crucial for Shell because it was actually where he 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.400 first started writing and cartooning for the school paper. And 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.000 of course, his flair for flaunting authority and you know, 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.360 all those established norms was even there in his earliest work. 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.360 So we found the first cartoon he ever published, and 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.039 it shows this naked student smoking a cigarette in front 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.400 of this angry professor, and the caption just reads, what 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:02.320 do you mean no smoking? I thought this was a 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.680 liberal school. I do kind of like that. There's that 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.120 hint of his absurd ast slant, you know, right there, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.279 from the very beginning. But I'm curious though. It sounds 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.720 like Silverstein finally found a decent fit or a home 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.080 there at Roosevelt. So did he eventually get his degree there? No, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.280 he never did. Actually, Uh, it wasn't his fault this time, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.600 like before, Shell had the chance to finish he was 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.359 drafted into the Korean War. This was in a I 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.640 think in nineteen three, and of course Shell being Shell, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.800 you know, there's no guarantee he would have finished college anyway. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.360 He implied at one point that you probably wouldn't have. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.600 But his time in the army actually proved just as formative. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.760 It gave him the chance to earn his first art 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.720 based paycheck. And this is while working as a cartoonist 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.680 for the Stars and Strips military newspaper. Actually, you know 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:48.960 what I remember reading about this. What wasn't he like 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.240 court martialed or something for his work on that paper? Yeah? 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.800 Almost so. Apparently one of the cartoons he did for 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.960 the paper implied that officers were clothing their families with 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.600 a bunch of like stolen uniforms, and of course the 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.560 higher ups didn't find it very funny. And in the 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.359 end Shell actually just narrowly avoided the court martial. He 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.080 didn't by agreeing that the future strips would only lampoon 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:15.080 civilians and animals and not as fellow soldiers. And that 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:16.640 makes sense because you know, if you think about if 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.440 anybody needs to be taken down a peg, it's animals. 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.560 I don't know how you feel about this, but I 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.960 do feel the same way, right, So all right, So 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.200 so now we're getting to the point where Silverstein's career 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.400 really begins to take shape. So he was discharged in ninetive. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.320 He goes back to Chicago and he starts working as 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.400 a freelance cartoonist and and it actually goes pretty well 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.240 for a while. So he lands a few gigs at 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.440 places like Sports Illustrated and Look magazine. But from this 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.800 he doesn't really get a whole lot of acclaim for 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.520 these jobs, and you know, none of its steady work. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.960 But then in nineteen fifty seven, Silverstein catches his big 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.520 break and he becomes the resident cartoonist for Playboy. Now 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.840 the magazine had premiered just a couple of years before, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.800 so you know, Silverstein was really able to get in 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.880 on the ground floor. But it actually wasn't some sort 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:04.800 of short lived stint on his way to, you know, 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.400 like later fame as a children's author. In fact, Silverstein's 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.920 cartoons appeared in every single issue of Playboy from nineteen 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.840 fifty seven all the way through the mid seventies. So 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.880 we're talking almost a couple of decades. That's crazy. So 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.160 I knew he worked at Playboy, and I just assumed, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.840 you know, like he's from Chicago. Playboy got his start 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.280 in Chicago, so so that makes sense. But I had 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.960 no idea that his adults only phase in his career 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.000 actually overlapped with his children's face. I mean, the Giving 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.800 Treaty was published in the sixties, so it's wild to 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.400 think he was still a Playboy employee during this time. Yeah. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.120 And actually there's even more overlapped than that, because in 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.120 nineteen sixty one, the adult magazine published its first ever 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.120 children's work, and I say that in Quotations, which was 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.920 called Uncle Shelby's a b Z Book, and soon after 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.800 it appeared in Playboy. Silverstein actually published this separately as 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.480 his first book. So something tells me this wasn't really 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.600 a kid's book right now. It definitely wasn't. I mean, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.120 the tagline claimed it was quote a primer for young minds, 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.040 but you wouldn't get too far into it before realizing 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.120 it was anything but that. So the idea is that, 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.080 you know, it was one of these children's Learned the 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.760 Alphabet books where every page gives you a letter and 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.880 then an ad collustration and like this little mnemonic device 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.360 to help kids learn the letters and how they're used. 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.640 But that really wasn't the goal in Uncle Shelby's case, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.679 and instead the book to use associations that targeted the 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.440 insecurities and gullibility of children and kind of tried to 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.880 spur them into all kinds of mischief. So just just 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.280 to give a couple examples of this, you know, one 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.120 entry encouraged kids to hurl eggs at the ceiling in 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.240 order to feed the magic genie Ernie who lives there, 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.240 I guess. And another one advised kids to pretend to 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.600 drink lie if they were ever craving candy, because you know, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.800 after the doctor pumps their stomach, he'll give you a 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.920 nice red lollipop. But anyway, but one of my favorites 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.320 is probably the entry for the letter B, and it 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.600 includes the lines see the baby play play baby, play 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.320 pretty pretty baby. Mommy loves the baby more than she 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.840 loves you. I mean, it's obviously horrible, and you know 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.640 this is clearly satire, and and the book wasn't meant 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:15.280 for kids in the slightest, but you just have to 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.920 know that some clueless parents bought this book for their 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.680 kids at some point, right, Oh, absolutely, And in fact, 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:26.040 those misunderstandings happen often enough that from onward. The print 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.200 edition of the book actually includes a stamp right on 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.840 the front cover and what it says is a primer 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.840 for adults only. I love that, Like, instead of taking 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.359 it out in circulation, they just put a stamp on it. 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.400 But what's interesting to me is that, you know what 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:43.880 a tongue in cheek book like this says about Shell's 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.120 view of children's literature. I mean, it's no secret that 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.720 he hated the way most children's authors condescended to their audience. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.000 Like he sometimes spoke about the way that the scarier 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.480 elements and classic fairy tales are toned down to make 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.760 the stories I guess like fluffier and more kid friendly. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.880 And he actually saw this as a form of censorship, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.120 which is a viewpoint that seems to have informed this 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.839 a b C book. Well, if you think about it, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:09.800 I mean, what better way to push against the status 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.320 quote of children's books than to just write your own 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.280 and do what you want with it. But you know, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.000 according to Silverstein, it was actually a friend and fellow 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.640 illustrator named Tomy Unger who helped him do just that. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.479 And by helped, I really mean forced, because, as Silverstein 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.000 later said that his friend quote practically dragged me kicking 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.360 and screaming and to editor Ursula Nordstrom's office, and Nordstrom 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.840 convinced me that Tomy was right. I could do children's books. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.200 And so for his first book, Silverstein made kind of 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.360 a bold move and stuck to the Uncle Shelby persona 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.960 he had created for Playboy. It's just so strange what 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.760 he did, but he called it Uncle Shelby's story of Lofcadio, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.440 the Lion who Shot Back, And it was an appropriately 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.360 twisted tale about this marshmallow loving lion who becomes a 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.719 famous marksman and as kind of an identity crisis as 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.080 a result of all this, saying, you know, you know, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.960 the kind of the standard children's stuff about life crisis 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.240 is and things like that. Sure, so look, Kadya is 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.400 one of Shell's lesser known works. But it doesn't predate 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.680 The Giving Tree by all that much, right, Like, I'm 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:13.920 pretty sure it came out just like a year later 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.760 or something. Well, you're you're half right about that. So 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.560 silver Team did write The Giving Tree a year after 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.120 his first book, along with a third title that's called 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.719 A Giraffe and a Half. But you know what, while 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.640 the story of This Generous Apple Tree would eventually become 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.439 his most popular book, at the time it was written, 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:33.600 actually no publisher would touch it. It was a full 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.320 year until somebody finally came around, and this was HarperCollins. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.679 I mean, if you're familiar with the book, you can 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.199 kind of see why this was. You know, it's not 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.200 a very happy story, and in fact, it's downright sad 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.160 in some places. And if you're looking for a moral 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:52.040 to the story, it's pretty ambiguous at best. I would say, no, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.160 that's true. And and when you think about it, that's 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.760 totally aligned with Shells m o. Right, like as this 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.480 new kind of children's author, like he ever wanted to 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.280 talk down to child readers or sugarcoat the world for them, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.599 and instead he was kind of trying to bridge the 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.560 gap between adult and children's writing. Well that's a good point, 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.960 and you know, from the publisher's perspective, though, the story 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.640 was sort of stranded somewhere in the middle of that bridge. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:15.760 You know, for example, it was kind of interesting to 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.360 just to see how different editors reacted to it. So 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.440 there was one from Simon and Schuster who rejected the book, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.200 and he said, it's not a kid's book. It's too sad, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.000 and it isn't for adults either, it's too simple. And 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.720 you know this other editor that just kind of went 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:31.920 straight to the chase here in his response, and he 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:37.080 said that Tree is sick neurotic. Well, I mean, plenty 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.320 of people would probably agree with that take, but we'll 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.000 save the controversy for later. For now, I do think 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.760 it's worth mentioning that Shell definitely got the last laugh. 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.680 You know. Uh, if you fast forward to today, the 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.840 Giving Tree has actually become one of the all time 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.160 children's classics. And not only is it sold nearly ten 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.480 million copies, it's also been translated into no fewer than 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.600 thirty different languages. Thirty different languages. I mean, not too 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.120 shabby for this sick neurotic Apple Tree, Really not at all. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.280 And I do want to spend some time on the 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.280 psychology behind Shell's writing and how that relates to the 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.000 controversy we touched on. But I also think we'd be 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.560 doing our listeners a real disservice if we didn't talk 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.600 at least a little bit about Silverstein's bizarre stint as 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.680 a songwriter. Alright, one with you on that, So let's 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.240 do that. But before we get to it, let's take 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:37.920 a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.000 we're talking about the strange life and times of Shell's Silverstein, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.520 And if you ask me, one of the strangest times 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.040 in his life by far, was this period between nineteen 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.040 fifty nine in the mid nineteen seventies when he actually 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.480 enjoyed a pretty successful music career. I mean, particularly as 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.400 a songwriter. And I don't I don't think most people 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.480 know this. Yeah, I'd have to agree. I mean, it 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.640 makes sense that his knack for poetry would translate a songwriting, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.080 but it's still amazing just how well he pulled off 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.160 that transition. I mean, as a singer, he didn't have 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.960 much success. His voice was, I guess too raspy and 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.880 jarring for most people's ears, even though he actually does 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.800 have a dozen albums. But when he committed to songwriting, 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.240 things really took off for him, and by the end 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.760 of his life he'd written more than eight hundred songs. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.160 You know, many of these were recorded and performed by 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:27.000 some pretty famous artists. Like Willie Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jerry Lewis, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.400 even Johnny Cash. That's a pretty incredible lineup. And actually 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.440 he even won a Grammy for the song he wrote 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.120 for Johnny Cash, which was a boy named who. You've 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.320 heard this song right now? Yeah, of course, but I 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.560 didn't know Shell Silverstein wrote it until recently. Like, it 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.640 makes perfect sense in hindsight, right, Like, it's such a 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.320 deeply silly song and it still has a sense of 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.400 danger to it, so it really fits right into Shell's repertoire. Yeah, 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.720 it's true for anybody who might not have heard it before. 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:55.960 The song is about a boy who was named Sue 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.880 by his absentee father, and he gets picked on all 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.560 his life for having a girl's name, so much so 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.600 that one day Sue tracks down his dad and threatens 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.040 to kill him. And at that point, that's when the 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.760 dad reveals that he only named his son Sue because 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.520 he wanted to make him tough, I guess, by forcing 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.680 him to stand up for himself, you know, whenever somebody 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.320 made fun of him. Anyway, Sue gets on board with 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.560 this explanation and all is forgiven between he and his dad, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.200 you know. But the thing that most people don't know 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.960 is that Silverstein actually wrote a sequel to the song 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.800 as well. It was called Father of a Boy Named Sue. 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.200 But you will not find this song on a Johnny 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.880 Cash album. I mean, the darkness of this song it 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.520 actually kind of eclipses the silliness and the other one. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.160 So Silverstein wound up singing it himself, which which probably 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.920 explains why so few people actually know about So I'm 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.240 actually a little afraid to ask me. You can't just 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.480 leave us hanging like that. So what makes it so 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.800 much darker? Well, first of all, the sequel is told 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.440 from the dad's point of view, and it's basically him 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.640 setting the record straight on what happened in the first song. So, 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.640 for example, he reveals that he actually named his son Sue, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.960 not to toughen him up, but his revenge for all 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.720 those times the boys screamed and cried and all these 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:09.879 fits is a baby, which you know, of course, seems 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.280 perfectly fair, right yeah, it feels like a totally appropriate 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:17.280 response to like a baby acting like a baby, right right, Well, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.560 it gets decidedly inappropriate from there, So I'm not going 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.560 to go into details. You can track down the song 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.720 for yourself if you dare to do so. But let's 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.760 just say the character's relationship goes from unhealthy to something 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.640 much much worse. Oh no, I mean you can kind 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:34.720 of see why Johnny Cash might have taken a pass 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.800 on that, right, Oh yeah, for sure. And I mean 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.359 it really is sort of a weird thing to think 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.919 about something that dark coming from the mind of a 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.240 celebrated children's author. But honestly, I mean that kind of 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.520 black humor pops up a lot on the poems he 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.400 wrote for kids. I was just looking at some examples 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.000 of this, and you know, one of the best is 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.320 probably the poem called Dreadful. And this comes from where 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.359 the sidewalk ins. And it's pretty short, so I'll just 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.840 read it real quick. Here it goes, someone ain't the 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.600 baby baby? What a frightful thing to eat? Someone ate 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.199 the baby though she wasn't very sweet, It was a 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.000 heartless thing to do. The policeman haven't got a clue. 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.560 I simply can't imagine who would go and burp eat 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:17.240 the baby. I mean, I do understand why some parents 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.239 might not approve that one. You know, most of us 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.120 tend to frown on baby eating, after all, but on 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.119 the other hand, like the poem is clever, it's funny, 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.960 it seems pretty harmless on and all. And you know, I, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.280 I know people have accused Silverstein's poetry of being a 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.160 bad influence, but like, does anyone really think their kids 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.320 gonna go cannibal after hearing them? I mean, I know 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.719 what you mean, but it did get me wondering, like 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.840 what it is about Silverstein's poetry that kids find so 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.879 inherently appealing, you know, despite how dark it can get sometimes. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.199 And what I found is that it partly comes down 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.920 to how kids respond to poetry in general. All kinds 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.240 of psychological studies have shown that connection between music and 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.919 an infant's development of their language, and according to this 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.680 article from Frontiers and Psychology, quote the further removed a 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.080 feature of languages from music the later it is learned. 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.920 So the idea that kids respond so well the poetry 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.760 because it's the most musical of the language based arts, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.639 it just just kind of makes sense. That's really fascinating, 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.520 because you know, if it's the musicality they're responding to, 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.879 then a lot of the appeal is probably in the 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.879 sounds that are voices make, rather than the words themselves. 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.880 And I guess that makes sense, given how like children's 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:31.320 poetry usually plays up these acoustical aspects like rhythm or rhyme. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.840 It's certainly more than most adult poetry does, I guess. Yeah. 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.600 And I think most children's poets have to know that 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.200 their work will be read aloud, so it makes sense 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.000 that they try to craft these highly musical verses, since 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.000 you know, those are the most fun, both both to 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.320 hear and to to listen to. Yeah, and obviously shel 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.439 Silverstein did just that. But you know, I don't think 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.879 it's just the musicality of his writing that's endeared him 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.800 to so many generations of young readers, like silliness and cleverness. 0:19:57.800 --> 0:19:59.840 Obviously that has a lot to do with it. But 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.439 if you ask me, the thing that really wins kids 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.000 over are those hints of menace and sadness that underlines 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.960 so much of his work. Like Where the Sidewalk Ins 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.639 is such a melancholy poem, and even as a concept, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.520 it sounds sort of foreboding. Yeah, and is that what 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.679