Sixteen Tons

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"Sixteen Tons"
Song by Merle Travis
from the album Folk Songs of the Hills
B-side "Dark as a Dungeon"
ReleasedJuly 1947 (1947-07)
RecordedAugust 8, 1946
Studio Radio Recorders, Los Angeles
Genre Folk
Length2:54
Label Capitol Americana [1]
Songwriter(s) Merle Travis
Producer(s) Lee Gillette
Official audio
"Sixteen Tons" on YouTube

"Sixteen Tons" is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. [2] Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California, on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album Folk Songs of the Hills . [3] The song became a gold record.

Contents

Authorship

The sole authorship of "Sixteen Tons" is attributed to Merle Travis on all recordings [4] beginning with Travis's own 1946 record and is registered with BMI as a Merle Travis composition. George S. Davis, a folk singer and songwriter who had been a Kentucky coal miner, claimed on a 1966 recording for Folkways Records to have written the song as "Nine-to-ten tons" in the 1930s; [5] he also at different times claimed to have written the song as "Twenty-One Tons". There is no supporting evidence for Davis's claim. Davis's 1966 recording of his version of the song (with some slightly different lyrics and tune, but titled "Sixteen Tons") appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men [6] and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian. [7]

The line "another day older and deeper in debt" from the chorus came from a letter written by Travis's brother John. [2] This and the line "I owe my soul to the company store" are a reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this scrip system, workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with non-transferable credit vouchers that could be exchanged only for goods sold at the company store. This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or houses, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay. In the United States 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 eponymous "sixteen tons" refers to a practice of initiating new miners. In the mid-1920s, a miner tended to haul eight to ten tons per day, whereas for new miners, other miners would slack off so the new miner could "'make sixteen' on his very first day." [8]

Tennessee Ernie Ford version

"Sixteen Tons"
Single by Tennessee Ernie Ford
from the album Ford Favorites
A-side "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry"
ReleasedOctober 1955
RecordedSeptember 20, 1955
Genre Country, traditional pop
Length2:34
Label Capitol
Songwriter(s) Merle Travis
Producer(s) Jack Fascinato
Tennessee Ernie Ford singles chronology
"His Hands"
(1955)
"Sixteen Tons"
(1955)
"That's All"
(1955)
Official audio
"Sixteen Tons" on YouTube

Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded "Sixteen Tons" in 1955 as the B-side of his cover of the Moon Mullican standard "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry". With Ford's snapping fingers and a unique clarinet-driven pop arrangement, it quickly became a million seller. [4] It hit Billboard 's country music chart in November and held the No. 1 position for ten weeks, then crossed over and held the number 1 position on the pop music chart for eight weeks, [9] besting the competing version by Johnny Desmond. In the United Kingdom, Ford's version competed with versions by Edmund Hockridge and Frankie Laine. Nevertheless, Ford's version was the most successful, spending four weeks at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in January and February 1956. [10] [11] On March 25, 2015, Ford's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. [12] It was featured in the 9th episode of Season 22 of South Park. In 2002, the song was played at the beginning of the Emmy-winning TV film Door to Door .[ citation needed ] In 2023, it was included on the soundtrack of the 2023 Wes Anderson film Asteroid City . [13]

Other versions

Frankie Laine's version was not released in the United States but sold well in the UK. Ford's version was released on 17 October, and by 28 October had sold 400,000 copies. On 10 November, a million copies had been sold; two million were sold by 15 December. [14]

Child coal miners in West Virginia, 1908 Child coal miners (1908) crop.jpg
Child coal miners in West Virginia, 1908

The song has been recorded or performed in concert by a wide variety of musicians:

Foreign-language versions

In literature and the arts

Eric Burdon's version of "Sixteen Tons" is the opening song of the 1990 American film Joe Versus the Volcano .

Songwriter Rupert Holmes cited "Sixteen Tons" as an inspiration for his song "Timothy", about a pair of miners who are implied to have cannibalized their fellow miner when the three are trapped following a mine collapse.

The song remained popularly recognized through the 20th and early 21st centuries, used or referenced in a number of works.[ citation needed ] It is featured in the second season premiere of The Wire, where The Nighthawks perform a cover version of the song during a bar scene. In the season 22 South Park episode "Unfulfilled", Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons" plays in the background of a montage of an Amazon fulfillment center, and in The Simpsons episode "Bart Gets an Elephant", "Sixteen Tons" is being played on the radio as Bart is forced by Marge to do housework. In Fallout 76 , Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons" is one of the songs featured on the in-game Appalachia Radio. It is also part of the soundtrack for Season 5, Episode 3 of the TV show Fargo (TV series) . [35]

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References

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References

Citations

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