Sixteen Tons
E870116
"Sixteen Tons" is a 1955 country and folk song, famously performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford, that portrays the hardships and debt-driven life of coal miners.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Sixteen Tons canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10548040 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sixteen Tons Context triple: [Tennessee Ernie Ford, notableWork, Sixteen Tons]
-
A.
Lonesome Town
"Lonesome Town" is a melancholic 1958 pop ballad performed by Ricky Nelson that became one of his signature hits.
-
B.
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
"Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" is a rock ballad by the Irish band U2, known for its emotional vocals and atmospheric guitar work.
-
C.
Lonesome Tree
"Lonesome Tree" is the opening theme song associated with the classic American Western television series *The Virginian*.
-
D.
Mama Tried
"Mama Tried" is a classic 1968 country song by Merle Haggard that reflects on regret and personal responsibility from the perspective of an imprisoned man.
-
E.
Last Chance Range
Last Chance Range is a remote mountain range in eastern California’s Mojave Desert, forming part of the rugged terrain near Death Valley and Saline Valley.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sixteen Tons Target entity description: "Sixteen Tons" is a 1955 country and folk song, famously performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford, that portrays the hardships and debt-driven life of coal miners.
-
A.
Lonesome Town
"Lonesome Town" is a melancholic 1958 pop ballad performed by Ricky Nelson that became one of his signature hits.
-
B.
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
"Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" is a rock ballad by the Irish band U2, known for its emotional vocals and atmospheric guitar work.
-
C.
Lonesome Tree
"Lonesome Tree" is the opening theme song associated with the classic American Western television series *The Virginian*.
-
D.
Mama Tried
"Mama Tried" is a classic 1968 country song by Merle Haggard that reflects on regret and personal responsibility from the perspective of an imprisoned man.
-
E.
Last Chance Range
Last Chance Range is a remote mountain range in eastern California’s Mojave Desert, forming part of the rugged terrain near Death Valley and Saline Valley.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (68)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
single
ⓘ
song ⓘ |
| chartPosition |
number 1 on Billboard country chart
ⓘ
number 1 on Billboard pop chart ⓘ |
| composer | Merle Travis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| firstRecordingArtist | Merle Travis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre |
country music
ⓘ
country pop ⓘ folk music ⓘ |
| hasMusicalFeature |
bass-baritone lead vocal in Tennessee Ernie Ford version
ⓘ
snap-clap rhythm in Tennessee Ernie Ford version ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
company town life
ⓘ
economic injustice ⓘ labor exploitation ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | experiences of Kentucky coal miners ⓘ |
| label | Capitol Records NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| lyricist | Merle Travis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| lyricQuote |
Another day older and deeper in debt
ⓘ
I owe my soul to the company store ⓘ You load sixteen tons, what do you get? ⓘ |
| notableLine |
I owe my soul to the company store
ⓘ
Saint Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go ⓘ |
| notablePerformer |
Johnny Cash
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Tennessee Ernie Ford NERFINISHED ⓘ The Weavers NERFINISHED ⓘ Tom Jones NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| popularizedBy | Tennessee Ernie Ford NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| recordedBy |
B.B. King
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Bo Diddley NERFINISHED ⓘ Eric Burdon NERFINISHED ⓘ Johnny Cash NERFINISHED ⓘ LeAnn Rimes NERFINISHED ⓘ Merle Travis NERFINISHED ⓘ Robbie Williams NERFINISHED ⓘ Tennessee Ernie Ford NERFINISHED ⓘ The Browns NERFINISHED ⓘ The Chieftains NERFINISHED ⓘ The Dandy Warhols NERFINISHED ⓘ The Dave Brubeck Quartet NERFINISHED ⓘ The Fendermen NERFINISHED ⓘ The Flying Pickets NERFINISHED ⓘ The Grateful Dead NERFINISHED ⓘ The Jordanaires NERFINISHED ⓘ The Kentucky Headhunters NERFINISHED ⓘ The Long Ryders NERFINISHED ⓘ The Man in Black Johnny Cash NERFINISHED ⓘ The Mavericks NERFINISHED ⓘ The Meat Puppets NERFINISHED ⓘ The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band NERFINISHED ⓘ The Oak Ridge Boys NERFINISHED ⓘ The Platters NERFINISHED ⓘ The Residents NERFINISHED ⓘ The Shadows NERFINISHED ⓘ The Spinners NERFINISHED ⓘ The Statler Brothers NERFINISHED ⓘ The Ventures NERFINISHED ⓘ The Weavers NERFINISHED ⓘ Tom Jones NERFINISHED ⓘ Tom Jones and Jerry Lee Lewis NERFINISHED ⓘ Tom Morello NERFINISHED ⓘ ZZ Top NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| releaseYear | 1955 ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
coal miners
ⓘ
debt bondage ⓘ hardship of working-class life ⓘ |
| writer | Merle Travis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Sixteen Tons Description of subject: "Sixteen Tons" is a 1955 country and folk song, famously performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford, that portrays the hardships and debt-driven life of coal miners.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.