Merle Travis - Sixteen Tons (1946) | Текст песни

• Тексты песен
• Merle Travis
• Sixteen Tons (1946)

CHORUS:
You load sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go,
I owe my soul to the company store.

(SPOKEN)
Yessir, there's a-many a Kentucky coal miner that pretty near owes his soul to the company store. He gets so far in debt to the coal company he's a-workin' for that he goes on for years without being paid one red cent in real honest-to-goodness money. But he can always go to the company store and draw flickers or scrip -- you know, that's little brass coins that you can't spend nowhere only at the company store. So they add that against his account and every day he gets a little farther in debt. (CHUCKLE) That sounds pretty bad, but even that's got a brighter side to it.

Now some people say a man is made outta mud
But poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

CHORUS

Well, I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine.
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mines.
I loaded sixteen tons of Number Nine coal,
And the straw-boss hollered, "Well, bless my soul.''

CHORUS

Well, I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain.
Fightin' and trouble is my middle name.
I was raised in the bottoms by a mama hound.
I'm mean as a dog, but I'm as gentle as a lamb.

ALTERNATE LYRICS, LAST TWO LINES:
I was raised in a cane-brake by a big mama lion
Cain't no high tone woman break this heart of mine.
WeIl, if you see me a-comin' you better step aside.
A lotta men didn't and a lotta men died.
I got a fist of iron, and a fist of steel.
If the right one don't get you, then the left one will.

CHORUS