Sixteen Tons, first recorded in English by Merle Travis in 1946, was made more popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955.
After several other English remakes (now called "covers"), Alberto Vázquez recorded
16 toneladas in 1956, using pretty much the same melody.
Another Spanish version was also recorded in 1956 by
Los Cuatro Soles y Ritmos. They didn't use the same melody, but interestingly enough, they did sing
«tienda de raya» in their rendition. I believe this wording retains the original idea better than what Alberto Vázquez wrote, but his version could mean the same thing (if you consider that 'my scrip' could be translated as
mi raya and that the store added the scrip to his account, and later the store subtracted it (
«la tienda mi raya (complemento directo) descontó») as commodities were purchased).
Here is the English chorus in question:
You load sixteen tons and 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.
The way the original writer of the song explained the chorus was as follows.
(This is about) a Kentucky coal miner that pert near owes his soul to the company store. He gets so far in debt to the coal company he’s aworkin’ for that he goes on sometimes for years without bein’ paid one red cent in real, honest-to-goodness money. But he can always go to the company store and draw flickers or scrip, you know that’s little brass coins that you can’t spend nowhere, only at the company store. So they add that against his account. And every day he gets a little farther in debt.
So, miners were often given scrip, only good at a company store, and were never paid anything else. They were further indebted to the coal company everyday.