Sixteen Tons
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"Sixteen Tons" is a song about the misery of coal mining, written in 1947 by U.S. country singer Merle Travis. A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford was on the b-side of "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry;" however, it was Ford's "Sixteen Tons" that reached number one in the Billboard charts, besting the performance of the competing version by Johnny Desmond. Another competing version by Frankie Laine was only released in the UK where it gave Ford's version some stiff competition on the charts. On October 17, it was released and, by October 28, it sold 400,000 copies. On November 10, a million copies had been sold. The record had sold two million copies by December 15.
The well-known chorus runs:
- You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
- Another day older and deeper in debt.
- Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
- I owe my soul to the company store...
The line from the chorus "another day older and deeper in debt" was a phrase often used by Travis's father, a coal miner himself.
This and the line "I owe my soul to the company store" is a reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this system workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with unexchangeable credit vouchers for goods at the company store (usually referred to as scrip). This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or apartment buildings, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay.
In the U.S. the truck system and associated debt bondage persisted until the strikes of the newly-formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.
The song has been covered by a wide variety of musicians. Examples include a rock version released by Eels on their live album "Sixteen Tons (10 Songs)" (2005), a country version released by Johnny Cash on his live alum "The Best of Johnny Cash in Concert" (1995), a version with a rock edge by Tom Jones that became a hit in 1967, a slow, jazzy version released by Stan Ridgway on the album Anatomy (1999), and a traditional roots country version released by Corb Lund on the album Modern Pain (1995). A folk-punk version was also performed by This Bike is a Pipe Bomb.
It was used for the memorable opening to the comedy Joe Versus the Volcano. The song is also sung in the undersea horror movie Leviathan.
Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's rendition of the song on January 8, 2007 received fairly widespread media play on a variety of television stations and on the popular website YouTube.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ "Dennis Kucinich sings "Sixteen Tons," God hangs himself," YouTube, 2007. Retrieved 31 March 2007.
- The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (fifth edition)
[edit] External links
West Virginia Historical Society Quarterly, Volume 15, Nos. 2 and 3, "Coal Miners and Their Communities in Southern Appalachia, 1925-1941" by Rhonda Janney Coleman.
Part 1: http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/wvhs1502.html
Part 2: http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/wvhs1503.html
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