Throwing back to the week of November 15, 1955, we find a couple of usual suspects atop the Billboard singles chart followed by Tennessee Ernie Jones at #3 with ‘Sixteen Tons.’ The song would ascend to #1 the following week and spend two months there.
This song was written and recorded by country singer Merle Travis a decade earlier. It is sung from the perspective of an Appalachian coal miner.
The song sounds vaguely familiar to me (perhaps because it appears in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City) but the line “another day older and deeper in debt” seems more familiar still. I thought maybe it was borrowed by another song but couldn’t turn anything up other than ‘Sixteen Tons.’
Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man’s made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong
[Chorus]
You load sixteen tons, 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
[Verse 2]
I was born one morning when the sun didn’t shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal
And the straw boss said, “Well-a bless my soul!”
[Chorus]
You load sixteen tons, 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
[Verse 3]
I was born one morning, it was drizzlin’ rain
Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion
Can’t no high-toned woman make me walk the line
[Chorus]
You load sixteen tons, 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
[Verse 4]
If you see me comin’ better step aside
A lot of men didn’t, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t getcha then the left one will
[Chorus]
You load sixteen tons, 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
Meet Me In Montauk 
Not really sure why, but I’ve known this song for years. Who knows? Maybe my dad used to sing it when I was a kid.
my mother loved this performer and this song is very familiar to me. Heard it many times