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| Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons |
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SIXTEEN TONS
(Merle Tavis)
Huge 1955 hit by Tennessee Ernie Ford
HISTORY OF "SIXTEEN TONS"
(This article from Wikipedia)
"Sixteen Tons" is a song about the misery of
coal mining. Although generally credited as
being written in 1947 by U.S. country singer
Merle Travis, it has also been claimed that
the Travis version was actually a rip-off of
an earlier song called "Nine-to-ten tons",
written by a singer called George S. Davis in
the 1930s. A 1955 version recorded by
'Tennessee' Ernie Ford was on the b-side of
his cover of the Moon Mullican standard, "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 released only 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. In 1955 it was recorded by
Tennessee Ernie Ford and hit Billboard's
Country Music charts in November and held the
#1 position for ten weeks, then crossed over
and held the #1 position on the pop music
charts for eight weeks. Other 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 album "The Best of Johnny
Cash in Concert" (1995), a version with a
rock edge by Tom Jones that became a hit in
1967, a blues-rock version recorded in 1972
by CCS, a slow, jazzy version released by
Stan Ridgway on the album Anatomy (1999), a
cumbia version by nuclear polka band Brave
Combo, 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.
Swedish doom metal band Memento Mori recorded
a version of this song as a hidden track on
their 1993 debut album Rhymes of Lunacy. The
song can be found if the listener allows the
CD to remain playing several minutes after
the final listed song ends. Serbian hard rock
band Riblja ÄŒorba recorded a cover version
called "16 noći" (Trans. "16 nights"), which
appeared on their 1999 album Nojeva barka.
The 1990 rendition of the song by Eric Burdon
was used for the memorable opening to the
comedy JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO. The song is
also sung in the undersea horror movie
LEVANIATHAN.
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.
In Russia, Moscow's venue "Sixteen Tons" is
named after the song by Merle Travis.
"Sixteen Tons" track is a house song and can
be heard before each concert held in the
club.
In Russia this song has been famous since the
Soviet times, but in the Platters' version.
The song was so influential, that in the USSR
several cover versions were made in Russian.
In one of the Russian versions the words in
the chorus were about US plans to attack the
USSR with 16 ton bombs:
Sixteen tons, the heavy load Planes are
flying to bomb the Soviet Union
The planes are flying to the East
To bomb a simple soviet village
In 2005, General Electric ran a series of ads
for its new "clean coal" campaign. With clear
disregard for the message of "Sixteen tons,"
they used it to sell coal and the coal
industry.
Tags : tennessee ernie ford sixteen 16 tons |
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Affichage : 306028
Durée : 159 s |
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