Sixteen Tons

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Tennessee Ernie Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons" was a number one hit in the United States
The chorus sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

"Sixteen Tons" is a song about the life of a coal miner, first recorded in 1946 by American country singer Merle Travis and released on his box set album Folk Songs of the Hills the following year. A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, while another version by Frankie Laine was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.

Contents

Authorship [edit]

While the song is usually attributed to Merle Travis, to whom it is credited on his 1946 recording, 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.[1] Davis' recording of his version of the song appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men[2] and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian.[3]

According to Travis, the line from the chorus "another day older and deeper in debt" was a phrase often used by his father, a coal miner himself.[4] 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 scrip system, workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with non-transferable credit vouchers which 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.

Cover versions [edit]

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". It hit Billboard's Country Music charts in November and held the #1 position for ten weeks, then crossed over and held the number 1 position on the pop music charts for eight weeks,[5] besting the competing version by Johnny Desmond. In the United Kingdom, Ford's version competed with versions by Edmund Hockridge and Frankie Laine. Laine's version was not released in the United States but sold well in the UK: it was released on October 17 and by October 28 had sold 400,000 copies. On November 10, a million copies had been sold; two million were sold by December 15.

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The song has been covered by a wide variety of musicians:

Also:

  • Brave Combo recorded a cumbia version
  • Rehab covered it on the independently released album Cuz We Can
  • Rockapella recorded an a cappella version
  • This Bike is a Pipe Bomb made a folk-punk version
  • Sung on a weekly basis for the last 25 years by the Mobil Lounge Softball Team & Beer Swillers Club (aka MLST&BSC). Up-to-date team win/loss stats were substituted for the "lotta men died" section. Lyrics modified to include "Chucky", "P" (aka Mr. P), and "A Barber Named Mo".
Child coal miners in West Virginia, 1908

Foreign language versions [edit]

  • Armand Mestral released a version with French lyrics under the title "Seize Tonnes" in 1956.
  • A German version of the song did not translate the original lyrics, but rather rewrote them entirely, under the title "Sie hieß Mary-Ann". This was released in several versions on German record labels in 1956 and 1957, most notably by Freddy Quinn and Ralf Bendix.
  • Adriano Celentano released an Italian-language version, "L'Ascensore", in 1986.
  • A version called "靜心等" (Jìng Xi Deng, "Wait patiently") is a well-known hit in Taïwan, interpreted by Chinese singer 張露 (Chang Loo or Zhang Lu) and by Teresa Teng (鄧麗君, Deng Lijun).

In popular culture [edit]

Music
  • The Clash used Tennessee Ernie Ford's version as their intro music for their 1980 US tour, called "The 16 Tons Tour".
  • Rock band Faith No More covered a snippet of the song as an intro to "Let's Lynch the Landlord" (another cover) at live concerts in the early 90's.
Television
  • Ed Sullivan suggested Bo Diddley sing a version of the song for his 1955 appearance on Sullivan's television show. Instead, Diddley sang a rendition of his own song, "Bo Diddley," angering Sullivan.
  • A running gag on Monty Python's Flying Circus consisted of a 16-ton weight being suddenly dropped onto one of the characters in a skit.
  • The song appeared in season 5 of The Simpsons episode "Bart Gets an Elephant".
  • In the South Park episode "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset," Butters sings a variation of "Sixteen Tons" while mining for coal to avoid being sold to Paris Hilton. Dressed as a bear, he is seen digging outside singing: "Ya work 18 hours whadaya get? Parents sell ya to Paris Hilton".
  • The song was played by the band The Nighthawks in season two of the crime drama The Wire. It was played in the bar that was frequented by the Stevedore's union. It was also featured on the soundtrack.
  • The Tennessee Ernie Ford version of the song was played during the closing credits of the "Seven Twenty Three" episode of the television show Mad Men (Season 3, Episode 7, aired 2009), in which the show's lead character was strong-armed into signing a three-year employment contract.
  • In the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory Sheldon Cooper sings a line of the song in the Season 2 episode "The Work Song Nanocluster".
  • In 2005, General Electric ran a series of ads for its new "clean coal" campaign featuring the song.
  • In the "Last Train to Oblivion" episode of the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters, Peter Venkman sings this song as he shovels coal into the train furnace.
  • The American show Chuck (TV series) played this song during the episode Chuck Versus the Seduction Impossible (Episode no. Season 4 Episode 14 February 7, 2011).
Films
Stage
Parodies and inspirations
  • John Denver performed his golf-themed parody called 18 Holes in 1997.[16]
  • The song inspired the Hungarian rock band Republic to write the song "16 tonna feketeszén".
In Russia
  • In Russia, the Moscow concert venue Sixteen Tons[17] is named after the song, which is played before each concert held in the club. The song has been famous in Russia since the Soviet era, but in the Platters' version. It was so influential that in the USSR several cover versions were made in Russian, as well as innumerable parodies in which "sixteen tons" referred to the weight of a bomb carried by some pilots to be dropped on a target country. There were versions with Americans about to bomb USSR, Russians about to bomb America, and also Russians about to bomb China. Lyrics tended to vary by performer.

References [edit]

  1. ^ John Cohen, liner notes to the album George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Mining Men (Folkways FA 2343, 1967).
  2. ^ Folkways FA 2343, 1967
  3. ^ Folkways Recordings ASIN B000S9DIHK, 2002
  4. ^ http://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/full-list-of-inductees/view/merle-travis
  5. ^ Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-time Greatest: 100 Songs. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group. pp. 91–93. ISBN 1-57297-072-3. 
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ http://www.allmusic.hu/index.php?oldal=albumlista&h_id=1752
  8. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLslR335ps
  9. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Party-With-This-Bike/dp/B000G5QZX0
  10. ^ MDQ Merchandising LLC (2010). "Song List" and "Performing Credits". In Million Dollar Quartet (p. 5) [CD booklet]. New York City: Avatar Studios; and Chicago: Chicago Recording Company
  11. ^ http://www.nightwatchmanmusic.com
  12. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfE0jgMUQrc
  13. ^ http://www.riyatabirleri.net/16tons_main.html
  14. ^ MDQ Merchandising LLC (2010). “Song List” and “Performing Credits”. In Million Dollar Quartet (p. 5) [CD booklet]. New York City: Avatar Studios; and Chicago: Chicago Recording Company.
  15. ^ Zielinski, Peter James. "Photo Coverage: Million Dollar Quartet Opens on Broadway". Posted: 12:04 PM; Monday, April 12, 2010. [2]
  16. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fbTGhDDL2g
  17. ^ http://www.16tons.ru/

External links [edit]

  • 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


Preceded by
"Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" by The Four Aces		 Billboard Top 100 number one single
(Tennessee Ernie version)
December 3, 1955 (6 weeks)		 Succeeded by
"Memories Are Made of This" by Dean Martin
Preceded by
"Love Love Love" by Webb Pierce		 Billboard Hot Country Singles
number one single by Tennessee Ernie Ford
December 17, 1955 - February 4, 1956
(ten weeks)		 Succeeded by
"Why Baby Why" by Red Sovine and Webb Pierce
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