The line "another day older and deeper in debt" from the chorus came from a letter written by Travis's brother John. Davis's 1966 recording of his version of the song (with some slightly different lyrics and tune, but titled "Sixteen Tons") appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian. There is no supporting evidence for Davis's claim. Davis, a folk singer and songwriter who had been a Kentucky coal miner, claimed on a 1966 recording for Folkways Records to have written the song as "Nine-to-ten tons" in the 1930s he also at different times claimed to have written the song as "Twenty-One Tons". The sole authorship of "Sixteen Tons" is attributed to Merle Travis on all recordings beginning with Travis's own 1946 record and is registered with BMI as a Merle Travis composition.
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