Ballad of the Thunder Road - Robert Mitchum

Now let me tell the story, I can tell it all

About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol

His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load

When his engine roared,

They called the highway thunder road.

Sometimes into ashville, sometimes memphis town

The revenoors chased him but they couldn’t run him

Down

Each time they thought they had him,

His engine would explode

He’d go by like they were standin' still on thunder

Road.

And there was thunder, thunder over thunder road

Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his

Load

There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the devil’s thirst

The law they swore they’d get him, but the devil got

Him first.

On the first of april, nineteen fifty-four

A federal man sent word he’d better make his run no More

He said two hundred agents were coverin' the state

Whichever road he tried to take, they’d get him sure as Fate.

Son, his daddy told him, make this run your last

Your tank is filled with hundred-proof,

You’re all tuned up and gassed

Now, don’t take any chances, if you can’t get through

I’d rather have you back again than all that mountain

Dew

Roarin' out of harlan, revving' up his mill

He shot the gap at cumberland,

And screamed by maynordsville

With g-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead

The mountain boy took roads that even angels feared

To tread.

Blazing' right through knoxville, out on kingston pike

Then right outside of Beardon, there they made the fatal

Strike

He left the road at ninety, that’s all there is to say

The devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy

That day