Sixteen Tons

I was raised in the canebreak by an old mama lion.

Used to have a boxing coach who loved to quote the one fist of iron line.
 
I was trying to remember how old I was when I used to listen to that at my grandmother's house as a kid and found a little trivia.

"Sixteen Tons" is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.[1]Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording.[2] It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album Folk Songs of the Hills.[3] The song became a gold record.

The line "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" came from a letter written by Travis's brother John.[1] Another line came from their father, a coal miner, who would say: "I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store."[4]

A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts,[5] while another version by Frankie Laine 1956 was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.

On March 25, 2015, Ford's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.[6]
 
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And not to be confused with...
 
Can't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
 
What is hard to read at the bottom, the last line is-

"I owe my soul to the company store".


Kentucky Bourbon Trail 233.JPG
 
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Some.... people say man is made out of mud, a poor man's made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bone, a mind that's weak and a back that's strong.
 
He does another good one children go where I send thee. Then he has the best version of the ballad of davie croket.
 
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