In 1947, Merle Travis released an album called "Folk Songs of the Hills", with the hope of matching Burl Ives in record sales. It didn't work out that way. One of the album's songs, though, took on a huge life of its own, especially with the release on Capitol Records of a cover version by Tennessee Ernie Ford just about 52 years ago, on October 17, 1955. The song, of course, was, "Sixteen Tons", 60 years old this year. To mix in a lyric from another song, what's it all about? Well.....
In one too-short sentence, "Sixteen Tons" is about the grim life of the coal miner. Given recent terrible events related to mining this year, to say nothing of related news this week (which fortunately turned out a lot more happily), the song seems eerily a propos in general, even though some of the life details have changed. Case in point, c/o the wikipedia entry:
'.....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.....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.'
What's also interesting, politics and sociology aside, is that "Sixteen Tons" is a reminder that a song can be popular without being artificially upbeat or pretending that all's well with the world. If you need reminding of how not-"happy, happy, joy, joy" this song is, lyrics are available here (slight variation in one verse here).
Many, many groups and singers have covered the song, although TEF's version still remains the most famous. (You can watch a rendition by him here.) One of the other bands that does their version is this group, and they're in town tonight here.
So to whom, or what, do you owe your soul? You can discourse on that, or otherwise share loser stories of the week, per the usual SNLC protocol....