Sixteen Tons - guitar chords and comments

Lyrics without distraction HERE

This song about a Kentucky coal miner is solely credited Merle Travis, and first recorded by him in 1946. It became world wide known with Tennesee Ernie Ford's finger-snapping recording from 1955, then growing to be a standard among working songs, recorded by hundreds of artists. Even Cartwright Pa Lorne Greene included it with his rare '65 album "The Man". The first version I can recall, is Dave Dudley's.
It's been discussed if this is a rip-off. Folk singer, and himself a former coal miner George S. Davis, claimed to have written it in the thirties, as "Nine-to-ten tons", but he never sued neither Travis nor BMI. Maybe he found it a bad idea; that he might have been just another day older and deeper in debt ... claiming copyrights in the USA may be an expensive affair.

Bm          Bm/A          Bm/G       F#
some people say a man is made outta mud
   Bm         Bm/A       Bm/G        F#
a poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Bm            D        E       Edim
muscle and blood and skin and bones
   Bm                     F#            Bm
a mind that's weak and a back that's strong