Sixteen Tons
Miner's debt song
A 1946 country song about coal miners trapped in debt to company stores, made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford's 1955 recording.
The title refers to the amount of coal a miner loads in a day.
The phrase evokes exhausting labor that enriches others while leaving the worker no better off: Another day older and deeper in debt.
I owe my soul to the company store.
- coalCombustible sedimentary rock
- coal minerUnderground fuel extractor
- mineOre excavation site
- TennesseeSixteenth state admitted
- work songMusic paced to labor
shovel · debt · company store · company town · soul · muscle · sweat · pickaxe · deep in debt · labor · exhaustion · wages · darkness · underground · hymn · burden · backbreaking · pit