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<\/a><\/p>\nIf Mark Steyn were not such a brilliant<\/strong> social analyst (here\u2019s my take<\/strong><\/a> on his latest book, After America<\/em><\/strong><\/a>) then I would wish him to be recognized as the<\/em> pre-eminent scholar and appreciator of the American Songbook<\/strong><\/a>. As much as I value his political stuff, I love when Steyn writes about the arts, and most particularly when he writes about music, where he is knowledgeable, funny and infectiously enthusiastic.<\/p>\n For Labor Day<\/strong>, Steyn gives us two songs about labor, \u201cOl\u2019 Man River\u201d and \u201c16 Tons,\u201d<\/strong><\/a> but mostly the story behind the latter, and Tennessee Ernie Ford\u2019s perfect little recording:<\/p>\n [Songwriter Merle] Travis had a facility for big memorable hooks, and so, asked to hustle up a handful of folk songs overnight, he figured why not? He said he remembered a letter his brother had sent him during the war, about the death of the great reporter Ernie Pyle in the Pacific. In the course of his musings, John Travis had sighed, \u201cIt\u2019s like working in the coal mines\u2026 Another day older and deeper in debt.\u201d Merle recalled, too, his father\u2019s weary fatalistic shrug when asked how things were going: \u201cI can\u2019t afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store.\u201d<\/p>\n Put those two lines together and you\u2019ve got half the song:<\/p>\n You load Sixteen Tons and what do you get? Travis was off and running:<\/p>\n Some people say a man is made out of mud And that line came from his childhood, too: the rueful acknowledgment of any one of a thousand long-suffering miners that he had a strong back but a weak mind.<\/p>\n [. . .] Ford\u2019s record career had suffered from lack of attention. In September that year, Capitol sent him a formal letter warning him of a breach of contract suit unless he cut two sides for an instant single. So he hurried into the studio and did a lively country blues for the A side, \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have To Be A Baby To Cry\u201d, and, more or less as a filler, offered \u201cSixteen Tons\u201d for the B side. Who knows what makes a hit? To set the tempo for his six-piece band, Ford, as he often did, began snapping his fingers. The producer Lee Gillette buzzed through from the control room: \u201cLeave that in.\u201d So they did. And maybe it was the finger-snaps or Ford\u2019s voice or the plaintive instrumental echo of the final line after every chorus, or maybe it was the combination. But, for whatever reason, it\u2019s one of those occasions where the record transforms the song; an ordinary pseudo-folk verse-and-chorus number had been enlarged into something big, bold and emblematic:<\/p>\n I was born one mornin\u2019 it was drizzlin\u2019 rain Steyn\u2019s book,<\/strong> A Song for the Season<\/em><\/strong><\/a> is already on my Christmas wish-list.<\/p>\n Do yourself a favor<\/strong>, get a nice cup of coffee or your prefered beverage and read the whole thing<\/strong><\/a>. And check out Ford singing it, here, with that great minimalist arrangement.<\/p>\n And then enjoy this much more involved piece<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nAnother day older and deeper in debt
\nSt Peter, don\u2019t you call me \u2019cause I can\u2019t go
\nI owe my soul to the company store\u2026<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nA poor man\u2019s made out of muscle and blood
\nMuscle and blood, skin and bones
\nA mind that\u2019s weak and a back that\u2019s strong\u2026<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nFightin\u2019 an\u2019 trouble are my middle name
\nI was raised in a cane-brake by an old mama lion
\nCan\u2019t no high-toned woman make me walk no line\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n