180. Sixteen Tons - "Tennessee Ernie" Ford
Stats:
- #1 for 7 Weeks in 1955-1956 (November - Janaury)
- Replaced: Autumn Leaves - Roger Williams
- Replaced by: Memories Are Made of This - Dean Martin
- Sample Headline from its Reign: Rosa Parks arrested for not yielding a seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person.
- #2 Hits It Prevented from Reaching #1: None
- Top 200 #1 Hits 1955-2000 Rank: #69
Those snaps are all you need to know. The working man's plight is boiled down to the struggle for money. Ford uses his gospel training to make this fight seem almost as fight that Jesus himself would join to defeat the forces that make him 'another day older and deeper in debt'. But because he lacks hope of escape, Ford's message here seems to subscribe to the 'take this job and shove it' school of country music as opposed to the aspirational. The snaps, though; that's the heartbeat of America there.
Coming up: #179 - "Forget about the rat race"
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