Dead Skunk

About Dead Skunk

"Dead Skunk" is a 1972 novelty song by Loudon Wainwright III. The song is musically a simple folk song based on banjo, but accompanied by guitar, drums and fiddle. The lyrics describe a dead skunk in the middle of a busy road and the smell it produces for pedestrians. Wainwright has said that the song came out of an actual accident involving a skunk, and that he wrote it afterward in 15 minutes. ("Someone had already killed it, but I ran over it.") Although the single was released in November 1972, it was not until well into 1973 that it caught on with radio stations, and its number 16 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was not reached until the week ending 31 March 1973. It peaked at number 12 on the Cashbox charts on April 14. It was the only record to chart for Wainwright. "Dead Skunk" also reached number eight in Canada and number 12 in Australia. The song has been played every Friday near 9 AM, on Top 40 radio station KRRY ("Y101") in Quincy, Illinois, since 1985. Y101 disc jockeys Dennis Oliver and Jeffrey Dorsey claim the two have played "Dead Skunk" more than any other radio station in the United States. The song has replaced the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" as the seventh inning stretch song at Georgia Institute of Technology's Russ Chandler Baseball Stadium. more »

Year:

2000

3:05

838 Views

Playlists:

#1

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Crossin' the highway late last night
He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right
He didn't see the station wagon car
The skunk got squashed and there you are

You got your
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin' to high heaven

Take a whiff on me, that ain't no rose
Roll up yer window and hold your nose
You don't have to look and you don't have to see
'Cause you can feel it in your olfactory

You got your
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
And it's stinkin' to high heaven

Yeah you got your dead cat and you got your dead dog
On a moonlight night you got your dead toad frog 
Got your dead rabbit and your dead raccoon
The blood and the guts they're gonna make you swoon

You got your
Dead skunk in the middle
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin' to high heaven

C'mon stink
You got it
It's dead, it's in the middle
Dead skunk in the middle
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin' to high heaven
All over the road, technicolor man
Oh, you got pollution
It's dead, it's in the middle
And it's stinkin' to high, high heaven

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Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Snowden Wainwright III (born September 5, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle. more »

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