"Sixteen Tons" -- A Song for our times.

[Brigid]

Tennessee Ernie Ford's rendition is more famous, but I like this Johnny Cash version better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk

[alphafemale]

1. I just want to know who the fuck told Johnny Cash he'd look good with a mustache?

gasp! ugh.

[Brigid]

2. I think you missed the point . . .

If that's what strikes you about that video. To tell you the truth, I didn't even notice the mustache.

[alphafemale]

4. I don't think his heart was in this one much at all.

Johnny Cash did much better on other songs. He just looked like he phoned that one in to me.

Sorry. But that's my take on it. And I love Johnny Cash.

This one will take your breath away though. Rich dudes at a black tie fancy dinner snapping away to 16 Tons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU

It may be a tribute to TEF. If so that makes it that much worse.

[Brigid]

5. OMG!

Talk about missing the point. These guys are really clueless. x(

[alphafemale]

8. I doubt it was ever a song any man that went a half mile down into the earth ever appreciated anyway

It is a rather humiliating song.

[Brigid]

9. Humiliating? Why?

It was expressing the feelings of those who were trapped in that situation.

[alphafemale]

12. No. It's not.

No one in a bad situation wants a big singer to imply that their situation is hopeless and make big money off that assertion. And anyway, unions had improved conditions tremendously by the time TEF recorded that song. In 1920 that song may have been accurate. In 1956...not so much.

And of course now we pretty much just saw the tops off of mountains to get to the coal.

Yeah...us!!!

///sarcasm///

[Brigid]

15. Have you ever seen the movie "October Sky?"

It was based on a true story, and set in a WV mining town in the 1950s. Didn't look to me like things had improved much from the depiction in the song.

[alphafemale]

16. I don't need to rely on a movie to know how miners lived.

I lived among them...OK? Tell me what you learned about them from a song and a movie again?

[Brigid]

18. Did the miners you lived among find that song humiliating?

They were the ones who wrote it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons

[alphafemale]

19. From the people I knew? They didn't like it for the most part.

Some may have liked it. There's never going to be a complete consensus on most things.

[Brigid]

20. Yes, that is true.

[alphafemale]

21. Try this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixVUY5g5E7w

[Canuckistanian]

3. Walmart is the new "company store"

Although we all owe our souls to Citibank.

[aka-chmeee]

6. This connection has occurred to me lately, but ......

I doubt very many people stupid enough to support republicans would have any idea at all what a "company store" even was.

[Brigid]

7. Excellent point.

More's the pity. :(

[alphafemale]

10. They charge tourists top dollar for authentic pieces of scrip.

I'm sorry but that's hilarious.

[Brigid]

11. The tourists and the sellers are both idiots.

It's obvious that nobody learns history, especially labor history, in school anymore.

[Uncle Joe]

27. And if corporate supremacist politicians like Governor Paul LePage of Maine have their way,

the people won't learn.

On a thread by meegbear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4784254

Maine Governor Orders Mural Depicting Labor History Removed From Labor Department

It's Diego Rivera Redux in Maine, as Governor Paul LePage is taking down a mural in the state Department of Labor building depicting the history of the labor movement and changing the names of conference rooms that he deems too pro-labor.

[blondeatlast]

24. Good point. nt

[demwing]

13. Here's Eric Burdon's version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6m1qgnUw74

from the movie "Joe vs the Volcano"

[Brigid]

14. Ah, yes . . .

The best opening of any movie I can remember. :)

[csziggy]

17. I like the Eric Burdon version in the opening of Joe versus the Volcano

The beginning of that movie puts the soul crushing concepts in the song in modern terms.
http://youtu.be/ytS4yFM4Oxw
Sorry about the lousy quality of this video - its the only version I could find on YouTube.

The Eric Burdon video of the song is here: http://youtu.be/E6m1qgnUw74

[demwing]

22. Yeah Harry...I know he can get the job, but can he DO the job?

...I'm not arguing that with you!

[blondeatlast]

23. Yup; but I still like Tennessee Ernie ford's better. I met him when I was

just a wee one; very cool guy!

[CBGLuthier]

25. Here is Merle Travis, probably the composer, singing it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pfVvqLM_e4

My grandfathers worked the mines in Kentucky, and some of my maternal uncles too.

My paternal grandfather though left Kentucky and moved to southern Ohio along with a million others. Where in the early fifties he met and picked a little with Merle Travis. Not professionally, just hanging out. My dad remembers him coming to their house.

Matewan, the John Sayles film about coal mining and the union is a must see for everyone who may not understand exactly what the struggle is about. They are attempting to return those days to us.

[Terry in Austin]

26. That's the first record I ever bought

It was a 78. Seriously.

:hippie: