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This Labor Day morning I found myself singing one of the greatest working-man songs ever. “Sixteen Tons” found its perfect voice in Tennessee Ernie Ford, who made a bazillion dollars off it in the 1950s.
A few years earlier, its original author/singer didn’t fare so well. He got a visit from the feds, among other things. For writing a subversive song and being a “communist sympathizer” (though in fact songwriter Merle Travis was a patriotic country boy).
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Today the armed hysterics would just use different terminology about people they fear.
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ADDED (from Michael W. Dean with tongue ever-so-slightly in cheek):
Well, since hopless government debt is the new normal, I suppose complaining about would be considered subversive today. What? You’re opposed to the continued funding of the over-reaching state by plundering the future? Re-education for you!
That pithy french quote always put me in mind of the song Circumstances, by Rush. However, there’s a more apropos tune by them for this thread.
Beneath Between Behind
No, not a latter-day Sixteen Tons, but then what could be? (Take this job and shove it?)
Good song choice. Another good “labor” song (sung by one of my favorite folk singers, regardless of him being a commie), Pete Seeger doing “”15 miles on on the Erie Canal.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxKy1_c6DeM
They taught us that in grade school music class in the 70s (since we lived on that canal.)
I’ve always thought that, and “16 tons” were a big influence on some Nick Cave, particularly his very spooky “up jumped the devil.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVNkA8Dfi60
I loved the Erie Canal song when I was a kid. They taught it to us in grade school, too. And I lived in California. It’s just a good song & Pete Seeger did a great version of it.
Met him once. He was very gracious. For a commie and all … 😉
My Dad was a big time Merle Travis fan!
😀
Aaaaah, grade school. Who can forget such classics! Of course, we sang This Land is Your Land, except not all the verses; I guess some were too much even for the 60’s in the public school I attended. Environmental awareness was introduced when I was in 5th grade, with some stuff for Earth Day. Well, who could argue that the Willamette was badly polluted, and the paper mills stank? What was that tune about hot and cold running rust?
We also sang lots of patriotic tunes, such as Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. The musical curriculum had lots of Americana in it, including the Erie Canal Song, and John Henry. I wonder how many public schools these days even mention Paul Bunyan.
And our Christmas concerts had actual references to God and Jesus.
Oh, and I wasn’t an anarcho-capitalist by 40, but I got better. 😉
“My Dad was a big time Merle Travis fan!”
Hm. Travis … Travis … I think, through my fabulous powers of deduction, I’m perceiving a connection here …
When I was 12 I read Pete Seeger’s book “How can I keep from singing?” One of the bullies at school picked it up and said “Oh good, you found a book to help you stop singing.”
True, and kinda funny actually. That one was smarter than the average bully.
MWD
I actually sang that song to get to my mom for making me do hated housework. Didn’t work. I still had to scrub floors on hnds and knees, iron, and clean the carpet with a brush everyday. And anything else she could dream up to actually give me a work ethic. Poor me.
Do you remember “God Bless America”? The Pledge of Allegiance? “Yankee Doodle”? “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”? So much of our history is in music and missed by the younger kids today.
America the Beautiful, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Marching to Pretoria ( … huh?), The Caisson Song (The Army Goes Rolling Along), the Marines’ Hymn …
But also songs such as Oh Shenendoah, and others of the American Frontier.
In 6th grade, we learned a bunch of silly camp songs, such as “I was born on a farm down in I-oh-way …”, and “Oh a Swiss boy went yodelling …”
I guess I have to count myself as being both anti-sentimental and anti-patriotic when it comes to old music. Oh, some of it I like. A lot. But I’ve come to dislike specifically “patriotic” songs like “God Bless America” (which, oddly enough, NPR did a feature on just a few minutes ago).
I’m so aware of how those songs were used to manipulate emotions. I feel ashamed that there were years when, under the influence of music like that, I felt and believed things authority figures wanted me to believe, rather than studying and thinking about the deeper and sometimes contradictory realities.
… But “Sixteen Tons” as a response to Mom’s “slavedriving”! LOL, now that I can understand.
MWD — Definitely wittier than the average bully. Probably no more pleasant though, eh?
Thanks Claire!
We have an “oldies” radio show here on Saturday nights and 16 Tons is a staple.
I’m a farmer and I sing it whenever I’m doing Really hard work. There’s a lot of work around here…..it’s a good thing I like to work.
Ah, Sixteen Tons has the scary line of “I owe my soul” in it, hehe. I always thought of it as more of the folk-ish genre but if I remember correctly it was considered country (or got famous via country charts.)
Got the earworm now, LOl.
Whippersnappers.
I grew up on The Ballad of Davy Crockett.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcRQedoEyY
Then there was John Henry, the steel-drivin man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqawxq0xmnA
These days you can’t do better than Isle of Hope, Celtic Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yluUCjH6ONs
So, since I started out as an anarcho-capitalist (on the knees of Murray Rothbard, no less), and I was never a liberal or a conservative, does tha mean I have neither a heart nor a brain?
Hmmm. Oh, Dorothy!!…
Thanks for the ohrwurm Claire. 🙂 First time I really listened to the whole thing. I always liked the Animals take on work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ueEVlUUgk
I liked your article too, and it jives with what I think. What do you do though, when you are married to a type A entrepreneurial working maniac? I guess some people have to be that way…
[(You cannot splice genes, split atoms, or build computer chips in your quaint Amish workshop.)]
Actually you’d be surprised what you can do in a little shop. In my engineering years I worked mostly for very small companies (and I enjoyed the work). We produced state-of-the-art computer hardware for scientific processing such as oilfield exploration (algorithms like fourier transforms and convolutions). I designed a couple of computer chips too, using Xilinx programmable gate arrays. And that was only 1980’s technology. At one point we were down to 12 people in the whole company; the president used to sweep the floors, heh.
Back to the original song, does it get any less ironic than the Red Army Choir singing it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI9KBLb_8ro
(And with one hell of an accent, too.)
How about sung in Russian?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO5X0wIJR8Q
I love the Russian-punk version. Damn, and here I didn’t think anybody but Tennessee Ernie could really do that song right. But somehow, that was perfect!
The Russian Army one, though … oh, weird. And that big shiny blue butterfly in the background? What was that about? Guy had an interesting voice, though. But also weird.
And then there’s the song about John Riley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy8P5whoIXY
Awesome song, Ellendra, and great version of it. Thank you.
+1 on John Riley. Powerful. The version I’m familiar with is Tim O’Brien’s, from his “The Crossing” project.
(Speaking of that project, I was always moved by Mick Ryan’s Lament as well.)