La tienda mi raya

[Tyrn]

Hi,

Should be la tienda de raya, but the lyrics run so:

Con 16 toneladas de que sirvió
La tienda mi raya me descontó
San pedro no me llames cierra tu portón
Que mi alma ya se la llevó el patrón

What is it?

[Rusty]

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.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I agree with Rusty.
I'll just add a note on the Mexican version of the song.

In Mexican Spanish, "la raya" is slang for "salary" or "pay".
In old times, the companies or owners of the working places had stores where the workers bought their groceries and other necessary items. They were called "tiendas de raya" because workers paid with what they earned.
The stores sold things more expensive than anywhere else, but workers had no choice, as their whole days belonged completely to the owner (not very different from slavery). And since salaries were usually smaller than the needs of the workers, they were always indebted, so they always got less than they were supposed to earn, and it was too often that they didn't see any of their payment at all.

Workers normally owed the "tienda de raya" years ahead of earnings. ;(

In usual grammar, the sentence should say "La tienda me descontó mi raya", but for poetic reasons, the rhythm sent the verb at the end of the verse.
The verse in the song means: "The store deducted my pay".

[Tyrn]

Thanks!

I'm so sorry that being terse I led you to believe that I have no idea what it's all about. Made you explain the idea to me... The only thing that baffled me was the meaning of raya in the context.

If it's a salary store etymologically, everything else makes sense immediately