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"Sixteen Tons" is a song about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in
Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. It was written and first recorded by Merle Travis
in 1946. It was first released by Capitol on the album Folk Songs of the Hills
(1947). The song became a gold record. The line, "You load sixteen tons and
what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" came from a letter
written by Travis' brother John. Another line came from their father, a coal
miner. Travis said, “…The chorus is from a saying my Dad often used. He never
saw real money. He was constantly in debt to the coal company. When shopping
was needed, Dad would go to a [coal company] window and draw little brass
tokens against his account. They could only be spent at the company store.
His humorous expression was, ‘I can’t afford to die. I owe my soul to the
company store.’"
As “Sixteen Tons” made plain in its lyrics, indebtedness to the company was also a problem in some coal communities, especially before labor reforms were adopted. Coal miners often became indebted to the “company store,” also known as the general store in some locations. With no competition, the company could keep prices high for everyday items, and employees — especially those with families — often needed to pay in credit with tokens or scrip. A never-ending cycle of debt often resulted, meaning essentially that the workers were perpetually bound to the company. A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts. On March 25, 2015, Ford's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording. This is not a folk song but a composed country song. Because Travis's songs are so close to traditional forms, Alan Lomax included it in his book The Folk Songs of North America. Besides Tennessee Ernie Ford, the song was also recorded by:
Merle Travis also wrote "Dark As a Dungeon" (in this section) |