Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons

Something unusual happened in October 1956.  Frankie Lane released a cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons single in England.  It sold 400,000 copies in ten days.  In two months, it's had sold two million copies.  It's not surprising that Lane, with his cowboy music theme songs, was successful with Ford's tune.  After all, Sixteen Tons wasn't Ford's first big hit (The Ballad of Davy Crockett was).  But despite Lane's record setting sales success, the song is indelibly linked to "Tennessee" Ernie Ford.

He gave himself that nickname.  Returning from World War II (where he had a B-29 bombardier over Tokyo), he got a job as an early morning DJ on a radio station in San Bernadino.  Looking for an angle to make him stand out from the crowd, he constructed a hillbilly persona from his childhood days, when he grew up poor in Tennessee.  "Tennessee Ernie" stuck, and he soon found himself recording singles.

1955 was his breakout year, with both The Ballad of Davy Crockett and Sixteen Tons.  He would go on to record two platinum and two gold albums, but would really be known for two things: his many Gospel songs, and Sixteen Tons.  Many others would cover the song, from Bo Diddley to Stevie Wonder to Noriel Vilela's samba version, but Ford's childhood roots of poverty always seemed to give it more cut.



Sixteen Tons (Songwriter: Merle Travis*)

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, 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

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, 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

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

You load sixteen tons, 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

If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will

You load sixteen tons, 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

* This is under some dispute.   Coalminer George S. Davis claims that he wrote this as Nine or Ten Tons in the 1930s.