1955 Songs: Sixteen Tons

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Although this song was a big hit in 1955, it actually went back another decade to its author. But there’s one thing about it: this song really is timeless. Even people who don’t like country music know this one. Even people who don’t really know what the heck the song is about know this one. Here we go back 70 years to one of the most legendary songs in popular music of the 20th century. Sixteen Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford Hey, look, NJ Chic, he’s got a pencil thin mustache, the Boston Blackie kind! It’s almost part of the conversational landscape: if someone makes a statement and ends it with, “And what do you get,” the standard answer is, “Another day older and deeper in debt.” Merle Travis, one of the legends of Kentucky music, wrote this about the dystopia of coal mining. Sure, miners had a house and a “company store” to shop in so they didn’t have to venture far into town for anything; however, they were paid in scrip that was only good in that particular coal mine’s store. So, in essence, they were working for the company and nothing else. If you read the history of coal mining in America, especially the violence that popped up once miners tried to unionize (it’s no stretch to call it a second Civil War), you’ll see a dark, ugly chapter in America. Travis had a lot of relatives who were miners. However, as he said in the preface to “Dark as a Dungeon,” Merle learned to play the guitar and didn’t have to “dig out a living from under these old hills and hollers.” He recorded this, and many other songs about the coal miner, on his 1946 album Folk Songs From the Hills, which is one of the earliest examples of both an ALBUM and a “concept album.” Go to the mid-50s, and you have a strange phenomenon: a guy with a deep voice having hit records! (Jim Reeves’ first hits were recorded in a much higher range than he normally sang in because the record company owner told him that “nobody” wanted to hear a guy with a deep voice singing. Someone forgot to tell Tennessee Ernie.) Ernest Jennings Ford was his name, but everyone called him Tennessee Ernie. His catchphrase was “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart,” and this was his signature song. Next time you think you’re “another day older and deeper in debt,” remember where you heard it from. Sixteen Tons Written by Merle Travis Recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford From Ford Favorites, 1955 If the right one don’t get you then the left one will: