"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,[1] while another version by
Frankie Laine was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.
While the song is usually attributed to
Merle Travis,[1] 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.[3] Davis' recording of his version of the song appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men[4] and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian.[5]
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.[6] 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
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.[1] 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,[7] 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 more successful, spending four weeks at number 1 in the
UK Singles Chart in January and February 1956.[8][9]
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.[10]
1987:
Frank Tovey performed the song on his album Tyranny & the Hired Hand.
1990: A rendition of the song by
Eric Burdon was used for the opening to the comedy film Joe Versus the Volcano. Recorded in the early 1980s, it was not released until 1998 on the album Nightwinds Dying. In 1992 he recorded another version, which was released as the only studio track on the live album "
Access All Areas" in 1993.
1991: It was featured as a secret track on progressive thrash metal band
Confessor's album Condemned
1993: The Swedish doom metal band
Memento Mori recorded a version of this song as a hidden track on their debut album Rhymes of Lunacy.
1995:
Tuff, a hard rock band, released a cover version on their album Religious Fix
1995: A traditional roots country version was released by
Corb Lund on the album Modern Pain
1996:
Western Flyer did a live comical cover version for their album Back in America (1996)
1998:
Chicago band
Hello Dave did a rendition on their 16 Tons album.
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".
ZZ Top is performing the song on their 2014 tour with Jeff Beck.[18]
Foreign-language versions
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.
Brazilian composer Roberto Neves wrote the Portuguese version "Dezesseis Toneladas", first recorded by Noriel Vilela in 1971.[19][20]
Adriano Celentano released an Italian-language version, "L'Ascensore", in 1986.
A version called "靜心等" (Jìng Xin 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).
Hungarian rock band
Republic recorded a cover version in 1998 called "Tizenhat tonna feketeszén" ("16 tons black coal") on their album Üzenet (Message).[21][22]
Serbian hard rock band
Riblja Čorba recorded a cover version in 1999 called "16 noći" (Trans. "16 nights") on their album Nojeva barka.
July 2013, in Ukraine, the song was recently covered[23] by ukrabilly (Ukrainian folk) group "Ot Vinta!".[24]
In popular culture
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 1990s.
Champaign-Urbana based "Plowpunk" band Sixteen Tons performed from 1988 to the present.
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.
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 Russia, the
Moscow concert venue Sixteen Tons[32] 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.
^Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-time Greatest: 100 Songs. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group. pp. 91–93.
ISBN1-57297-072-3.
^Rice, Jo (1982). The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1st ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. p. 23.
ISBN0-85112-250-7.
^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
^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.
"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,[1] while another version by
Frankie Laine was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.
While the song is usually attributed to
Merle Travis,[1] 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.[3] Davis' recording of his version of the song appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men[4] and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian.[5]
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.[6] 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
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.[1] 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,[7] 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 more successful, spending four weeks at number 1 in the
UK Singles Chart in January and February 1956.[8][9]
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.[10]
1987:
Frank Tovey performed the song on his album Tyranny & the Hired Hand.
1990: A rendition of the song by
Eric Burdon was used for the opening to the comedy film Joe Versus the Volcano. Recorded in the early 1980s, it was not released until 1998 on the album Nightwinds Dying. In 1992 he recorded another version, which was released as the only studio track on the live album "
Access All Areas" in 1993.
1991: It was featured as a secret track on progressive thrash metal band
Confessor's album Condemned
1993: The Swedish doom metal band
Memento Mori recorded a version of this song as a hidden track on their debut album Rhymes of Lunacy.
1995:
Tuff, a hard rock band, released a cover version on their album Religious Fix
1995: A traditional roots country version was released by
Corb Lund on the album Modern Pain
1996:
Western Flyer did a live comical cover version for their album Back in America (1996)
1998:
Chicago band
Hello Dave did a rendition on their 16 Tons album.
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".
ZZ Top is performing the song on their 2014 tour with Jeff Beck.[18]
Foreign-language versions
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.
Brazilian composer Roberto Neves wrote the Portuguese version "Dezesseis Toneladas", first recorded by Noriel Vilela in 1971.[19][20]
Adriano Celentano released an Italian-language version, "L'Ascensore", in 1986.
A version called "靜心等" (Jìng Xin 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).
Hungarian rock band
Republic recorded a cover version in 1998 called "Tizenhat tonna feketeszén" ("16 tons black coal") on their album Üzenet (Message).[21][22]
Serbian hard rock band
Riblja Čorba recorded a cover version in 1999 called "16 noći" (Trans. "16 nights") on their album Nojeva barka.
July 2013, in Ukraine, the song was recently covered[23] by ukrabilly (Ukrainian folk) group "Ot Vinta!".[24]
In popular culture
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 1990s.
Champaign-Urbana based "Plowpunk" band Sixteen Tons performed from 1988 to the present.
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.
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 Russia, the
Moscow concert venue Sixteen Tons[32] 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.
^Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-time Greatest: 100 Songs. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group. pp. 91–93.
ISBN1-57297-072-3.
^Rice, Jo (1982). The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1st ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. p. 23.
ISBN0-85112-250-7.
^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
^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.