It's been a draining week, and all of our posts have been intentional-only (really the best kind, don't you agree?). But we return to Quizville like a moth to the flame, despite our vows to let the trivia alone for a while. Come join us as we continue our increasingly consistent backslidery.
It was written in 1946 for an album comprised of four 78-rpm records. It was one of several songs on the record concerned with the occupation of the songwriter's father.
The title and chorus of the song were inspired by a reference to this occupation made by the songwriter's brother John, who had written in a letter lamenting the death in 1945 of combat journalist Ernie Pyle --the letter expressed a sense of futility, using their father's work as a metaphor.
The LP was released the following year and the song (and others like it on the record) stirred up a small controversy because of their content, which was perceived as potentially pro-communist. One Chicago radio producer later claimed that FBI agents had warned him not to play the songwriter's records.
Then in the mid-fifties, a friend of the writer performed the song on his own television variety show. Letters from viewers were enthusiastic. Later in the same year, he recorded it as the B-side to an intended hit single, but the B-side took off. In less than a month a million copies were sold, hitting over twice that number by the year's end.
What was the song? Who was the singer who made it a hit? For a bonus point, who was the original songwriter?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a coupon good for a free Mickey Mouse Martini at the Plantation House in Orlando. No Googling or asking that pack rat guy who was almost crushed by his own record collection last year. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
Posted by BT at May 13, 2005 10:33 AMThis sounds like Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Sixteen Tons."
Posted by: Gavin on May 13, 2005 10:36 AMThat was going to be my guess, too. I don't know the songwriter, though it may come to me.
Posted by: Scott on May 13, 2005 10:40 AMI'll guess that the songwriter was Pete Seeger.
Posted by: Gavin on May 13, 2005 10:41 AMDamn. That was head-spinningly fast. Well done, Mr. G. Shoulda made the bonus point the primary question.
(Waiting for Boxjam or Scraps to show up and knock THAT one out of the park.)
Mostly I just wanted to do a question for this song after looking up the lyrics (the only verse I knew in my head was the one about how a man is born, and he's made out of mud, but that nasty old company wants him for muscle, blood, skin, bone, plus the classic weak mind/strong back combo so prized in the mineral-extraction field.)
Anybody able to name name not only the singer but one of the other enduring songs from the original 1947 set?
Posted by: BT on May 13, 2005 10:48 AMOh, and nope, not Pete Seeger.
Posted by: BT on May 13, 2005 10:54 AMI am that pack rat guy who was almost crushed by his own record collection last year!
Posted by: Gavin on May 13, 2005 11:05 AMBob Hope
"John Law Burned Down the Liquor Store"
Woody Guthrie
"We Shall Overcome"
I think the bonus answer is fairly obscure--after scratching my head for a while, I gave up and looked it up.
Bill, is the other enduring song you're looking for perhaps now best-known in Johnny Cash's version?
I was pleased to discover that the songwriter in question had two different songs that topped the country charts for fourteen weeks each, each with a classic title: "Divorce Me C.O.D." and "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed."
Posted by: Gavin on May 14, 2005 01:08 AMI love "sixteen tons" but the Tennessee Ernie Ford record I bought for 99 cents (american) called "Yesterday--Today: 25th Anniversary" doesn't live up to that track's promise. Still there are a couple of good songs (but I'm not proud to have "everything is beautiful" in my collection). For the record, there is only one T. Ernie Ford original ("shotgun boogie") on his greatest hits. Another song by the songwriter in question does appear, but Gavin is right, the Johnny Cash version is better known.
Posted by: art on May 14, 2005 05:26 AMI wouldn't have guessed "Sixteen Tons," but I do know it was written by Merle Travis. The one done by Johnny Cash would be "Dark as a Dungeon." Travis wrote "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!", too, which my father sang ("Sixteen Tons," too; that's one of the earliest couple dozen songs I remember).
Sorry I hadn't had a chance to weigh in here since the followups were posted -- as Scraps sez, it's Merle Travis, who recorded back in the forties a sort of folk tour-de-force of standards and originals, including both "Sixteen Tons" and "Dark as a Dungeon."
I am working on the Quizvitational Runner-Up Prize now, and I promise that one of the songs mentioned in the above thread will be on it.
Posted by: BT on May 16, 2005 10:03 PMTravis was apparently asked to do a whole album of mining songs; he didn't know enough to fill out the album, so he wrote some.
Posted by: Gavin on May 17, 2005 09:20 AMWell since there really is no point in making any sort of guess since all the gurus have weighed in, I'll see if I can stir up another discussion. It's related, I promise.
Anyone have thoughts on the GE commercial featuring the song in question with the sexy models as miners?
Posted by: Jenn on May 20, 2005 01:25 PM