Talk:Sixteen Tons

message: Would it be better if every page about song has a "Lyrics" section?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4B00:9DB9:3B00:9C6A:8ACF:3265:72F0 (talk) 00:38, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

message: The genre of the song isn't specifically listed. Clearly, it charted as country, and was written by a country musician, but Ford's popular version seems to be jazz. Rag rhythm, brass hits, standing bass, etc. Amazon.com, in fact, lists Ford's Sixteen Tons MP3 under the genre of jazz, and I found several jazz websites that include it. Does anyone know of an expert analysis that talks about the genre? Since it's something of an unusual crossover, I think the genre is noteworthy. Verminjerky (talk) 13:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genre 

message: On October 17, it was released and, by October 28, it sold 400,000 copies. On November 10, a million copies had been sold. The record has sold 2,000,000 copies on December 15.
I think this is worded a little screwy.  Is the intent to show how quickly the song sold in 1955?  If that's the case, I think the last sentence should say "The record sold 2,000,000... copies by December 15." (rather that "has sold ... on ...").
But if the intent is to show the staying power — how many records have been sold since it was released — then the sentence should be qualified with a year; something like "Through 2005, the record has sold 2,000,000...".
I'm not qualified to make a correction.  (I'm not that bold.)  But could somebody look into what is really meant by that paragraph? Joe 13:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many copies sold and when? 

message: This song wasn't about coalminers!!! It was about African slaves in America!!! Could somebody please change this article so that it makes more sense? -- 9:30, 7 August 2008 User:Carrot11
:Then why does it mention coal (not cotton), and the company store? AnonMoos (talk) 07:55, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Carrot11 is not swift. Also, what's with the Soviet parody? The Soviets had a lot of nonsense propaganda; do we really need to help spread it around? 74.212.27.206 (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

text: You didn't grow up in a Coal Camp, did you? Al Shumate (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the ----? 

message: Did anybody ever get arrested for singing the wrong version of this song?   Why would people fly east to bomb Moscow, anyway?   Was this an anti-Moscow song?  And which city would they have been taking off from?  216.99.219.244 (talk) 22:02, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Censorship in the USSR?

message: Is there any speed where playing the vinyl record backward will reveal a secret message?   216.99.219.244 (talk) 22:07, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 1955 precedes by over 10 years most of the "backwards masking" and "Paul is dead" controversies.  Do you have any verifiable specific information? AnonMoos (talk) 08:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secret message when played backwards? 

message: "On October 17, it was released and, by October 28, it sold 400,000 copies. On November 10, a million copies had been sold. The record had sold two million copies by December 15."
Where, when, and which version? Kafka Liz (talk) 22:56, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead 

message: There is a recording of a performance of Sixteen Tons by Merle Travis before a live audience.  At the beginning of this track, he rambles a bit about how he hated this song from the time he wrote it until the Tennessee Ernie Ford version sold 2 million copies, then Merle LOVED it!  That strongly implies that Merle collected royalties on those sales.  He also mentions that his father was a coal miner, and that a miner could load 16 tons of coal on a good day.
You can hear this track on last.fm : just set it up to "play Merle Travis radio" and wait for it to come around.  Curiously, this is NOT the track you can play on demand (http://www.last.fm/music/Merle+Travis/_/Sixteen+Tons) or buy from Amazon!
I'm not putting any more time in on this.  Perhaps someone else can track down that recording.
RickJS (talk) 04:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy 

message: Late cut from Ernie inna "GoGo" style. Capitol #5425 'Sixteen Tons' (2'23") / 'Hicktown' (2'50")
LeshaOgonkov (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What, pray tell, is a "GoGo" style? Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about 1965 remake by Ernie? 

message: This article is in :Category:The Platters songs" and the section about Russia mentions a version by them, too. Yet there is no other information here or in the article about The Platters. Can someone explain? 80.145.0.190 (talk) 12:48, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Platters 

message: This section is prominent in the article. 
It draws attention to a "claim" by George S. Davis that a song of his from the 1930s was the basis for "Sixteen Tons". It also says that the song is "usually attributed to Merle Travis, to whom it is credited on his 1946 recording": the wording clearly implies that Travis is not the composer.
If that is the case, it would be worth seeing verifying sources. At the moment, the only footnote to this cites a 1966 interview by Davis himself. The only recording by Davis seems to be of "Sixteen Tons", made at the time of the interview and released in 1967, as his 1930s song was apparently unrecorded.
Interesting to see Travis himself quoted here as saying, "I stole pieces of two Josh White songs and wrote Sixteen Tons". That might be worth following up too. Lyn50 (talk) 09:47, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Authorship" 

message: In the final episode of Quantum Leap the plot line featured miners trapped in a coal mine. In once scene, an old man was complaining about his arthritis, exclaiming "I mined sixteen tons today. My grandmother could haul sixteen tons." Before that, sixteen tons seemed like a lot of coal to me. Does anyone know what the minimum tonnage was that a miner would need to haul out of the mine in order to pay for his living expenses, the break-even point?
I actually wondered about that, if it was supposed to be a "tall tale" number or not, but I was reading a very technical book about the development of steam locomotives, and it mentions that that mechanical stoker was invented because the accepted limit for a single fireman shoveling coal manually was 4,000-5,000lbs of coal per hour. Hard work, right? (I've seen that basic number in a number of other places as well). Haven't done the math yet to see how that breaks down by shovels per minute, but clearly it works out to 2 tons an hour minimum, or 16 tons per 8-hour shift. That may be the basis of "16 tons". Of course, these are firemen, not miners, but all he says is he "loaded 16 tons of number nine coal", not that he mined it. Even if he was, I believe that shifts were usually longer than 8 hours back then, so if a guy can shovel 16 tons of coal in eight hours, who knows how much he can mine. In any case, it's not an absurd number..45Colt 01:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the significance of 16 tons? 

message: Heineken is using a version of a spanish language song called "16 tonedelas", apparently a samba-rock something, in their new advertising campaign. Not sure if it's the 1968 version, but I believe the credited name was a newer artist. Someone should add a bit about the song, which is featured in their "legendary (blank)" commercial. It's clearly based on this song.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by .45Colt (talk • contribs) 01:19, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  16 Tonedelas 

message: Anyone who has a debt to a retailer can be said to "owe my soul to the company store". This is nothing to do with either the truck system or to debt bondage - which did not exist in the USA at this time.Royalcourtier (talk) 02:37, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The company store is not any retailer, its one owned by the coal company. Maybe the only grocery store in the small remote town... glad to extend some credit to get you in a situation where you effectively can't quite your job... what're you gonna do? And that's not even considering situations where miners were flat-out paid in company scrip, redeemable only at the company store. Herostratus (talk) 18:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debt bondage 

message: The 16-ton weight was indeed a recurring "meme" in Monty Python: . . But there is no reason to suppose, as far as I can see, that it was connected in any way to this song. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monty Python 

message: Should the meaning of 16 tons be added to the page? I read that it was because to initiate miners, they had to haul 16 tons on their first day as opposed to the normal 8 or 10, but I can't find a credible source on it. I read the info on this website, and it cites a book called Only A Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs, which does exist, but I don't have it and can't find it online. Does anyone have the book or can the fact be verified in any other way? ThatGuyDavid09 (talk) 02:07, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: contact them at feedback@songfacts.com  They are very cooperative with source info. Tillywilly17 (talk) 03:58, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add meaning of 16 tons 

message: Almost all of these obviously don't meet the criteria. I'll gradually start to remove to give people the chance to object to indicidual removals. Or provide evidence that songcover is met. 203.13.3.94 (talk) 03:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: wp"songcover