Earlier in this thread there was an attribution of the line "I owe my soul to the company store" to Johnny Cash.

Although the late great Mr. Cash may very well have been among the many singers to cover the song in question, "Sixteen Tons," the best-known recording (and one of the earliest, if not the very first) was sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and I believe the authorship is generally attributed to Merle Travis.

The "company store" was for many years a feature of exploitative employment, especially in isolated rural areas, such as coal mining and sharecropping. While there must be very many references to this "peculiar institution" in many different songs, the complete phrase "I owe my soul to the company store" is, quite famously, a specific quote from "Sixteen Tons."