Sixteen Tons (song)

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Sixteen Tons is a socially critical Country - / Folk - Song , the 1947 by Merle Travis was released. 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford made him the number one hit in the country and pop charts and a million seller . The play describes life in US coal mines around the time of World War II .

History of origin

It has been controversial since 1967 to which composers and lyricists the copyright to Sixteen Tons goes back. Folk singer George Davis claims to have written the song under the title Nine-to-Ten-Tons as early as the 1930s when he was working in a coal mine himself. Other sources assume a traditional . The BMI According However, the country singer Merle Travis entered as author.

During the recording of the planned album Folk Songs of the Hills , Travis was asked by Cliffie Stone , who was already working for Capitol Records at the time, to include songs about mining for this four-part shellac series. Since Travis was not aware of any such songs, he composed Nine-Pound Hammer and Sixteen Tons . Recorded on August 8, 1946 at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, Sixteen Tons was released as part of the album as Capitol 48001 in June 1947. At the same time, the song appeared as a release on the A-side of an individually sold shellac record (B-side: Dark as a Dungeon ), which did not reach the country hit list. Then Sixteen Tons was forgotten for some time.

The single Sixteen Tons in the version by Tennessee Ernie Ford, already pressed on vinyl

The Tennessee Ernie Ford, who was also under contract with Capitol Records, came up with the idea of ​​recording his own version of the song in 1955. He later recalled: "They didn't get a fit of enthusiasm at Capitol". Ford was not impressed by the reluctance and also recorded Sixteen Tons in Capitol Studios on September 21, 1955. To quicken the pace, Ford snapped his fingers, much to his producer's displeasure. This was mistakenly not removed from the die by his producer Lee Gillette. As the B-side of the single You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry , the song climbed from number 40 (October 15, 1955) to number 1 (November 26, 1955). 400,000 copies were sold within the first eleven days of its publication, and on December 3, 1955, the music magazine Billboard announced that the million mark had been exceeded; on December 15, 1955, two million records had already been sold. This made Sixteen Tons the first number one success for Capitol Records and for a long time it was the fastest-selling single of all time. The successful hit stayed at number one on the country charts for ten weeks and at the same time at the top of the pop charts for eight weeks .

content

According to Archie Green, the text includes some key passages that Travis took from quotes from family members. When asked about his health, his father is said to have replied that he could not afford to die because he owed his soul to the grocery store to which he had credit.

Sixteen Tons is socially critical of the sometimes inhumane circumstances under which American pals had to live with their families at the time. This included wage slavery :

  • The US miners were paid not with cash but with tokens (scrips) , some of which could only be redeemed in the company's own shops;
  • the local food supply (company store) , which was also handled through these stores, was monopolized and the prices were above the local average;
  • The income and expenditure situation in the company's own stores, which was deliberately controlled exclusively in favor of the mine owner, resulted in unavoidable debts for the wage slaves (Another day older and deeper in debt) , from which a dependency relationship similar to serfdom arose (“I owe my soul to the company store ") ;

Cover versions

Pete Seeger sang Sixteen Tons with The Weavers in the early 1950s. An early version following the original publication came from Johnny Desmond, but in November 1955 it had no outstanding success (17th place). In 1956, German versions by Freddy Quinn (6th place) and Ralf Bendix (2nd place) appeared with a completely different German text by Peter Moesser under the title She was called Mary-Ann . Here the text is about a seaman who hires on the ship Mary-Ann and ascends to become captain. At the end of the song, he goes down with the ship. Frankie Laine also released another version for the British market in 1956, which reached number 10 on the charts. 1957 appeared the first French version of Jean Bertola with Seize Tonnes .

The number of successor versions installed worldwide should now be in the four-digit range. Apple's Internet trading platform iTunes Music Store alone had around 200 versions on offer in 2010. The artists are as different as the styles of their interpretations. In addition to other versions in the style of rhythm and blues , for example by the Platters (1957) and Eugene Church (1963) there is also a rock version by Tom Jones (LP Green, Green Grass of Home ; 1967), a blues rock version of CCS (1972), one in the country style by Johnny Cash (LP Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town ; 1987) and Eric Burdon (LP Nightwinds Dying ; 1998), yet another in a slow- jazzy form by Stan Ridgway (LP Anatomy ; 1999) and a swing interpretation by Robbie Williams (LP Swings Both Ways , 2013). The song was also recorded by musicians as diverse as the Rattles , Joe Cocker , the independent rocker Frank Tovey , the French chanson singer Joe Dassin and the folk and street music duo Gee Gee & Soluna .

Trivia

  • The episode "Unfullfilled" (No. 9, 22nd season, first broadcast on December 5, 2018) of the US series South Park uses the song in the version by Tennessee Ernie Ford . In terms of content, the consequence draws a parallel between the above-described relationships of former coal workers and those of today's employees of the online marketplace Amazon , especially the employees in shipping processing. Following the figure of Stephen Stotch ( Butters Stotch's father), it is shown how Stotch prepares parcels for dispatch during the day in one of the so-called Amazon fulfillment centers, while at the same time being an Amazon customer himself. For example, Stotch registers with Amazon Music on his smartphone during his lunch break and orders goods on his private computer after work. The episode is subject to an overall system-critical tenor from the perspective of a working class , which is underlined by allusions to Marxist social perspectives and in some cases direct quotations from the work of Karl Marx (e.g. "The history of this world is the history of class struggles", the English translation of a Quote from the Communist Party Manifesto ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Cohen, accompanying text (liner notes) to the LP When Kentucky Had No Union Men (on this George Davis is represented with his own version; Folkways FA 02343; 1967)
  2. ^ "Originating in Cumberland, Maryland, in the late 19th century ...": Albert Gamse (ed.), First Omnibus Of Folk Songs - The Best Of Folk Music. Book One , New York, 1968.
  3. ↑ BMI entry for Sixteen Tons  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / repertoire.bmi.com  
  4. ^ Fred Bronson, The Billboard Book Of Number One Hits , 1985, p. 5
  5. ↑ "Nobody threw a fit over it"; Pete Martin interview with Tennessee Ernie Ford, in: Saturday Evening Post (Sept. 28, 1957), 124; reprinted in Archie Green, Only a Miner - Studies in recorded coal-mining songs , University of Illinois Press, 1972, pp. 301-302.
  6. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1978, p. 89
  7. ^ "I owe my soul to the company store"; Archie Green, Only a Miner - Studies in recorded coal-mining songs , University of Illinois Press, 1972, p. 309. The strong shoulder with a weak brain (strong back and weak mind) goes back to a saying of the American miners at the time.
  8. ↑ Unfulfilled. Retrieved December 13, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Unfulfilled, minute 20:37. Retrieved December 13, 2018 .

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