The Ballad of Thunder Road

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The Ballad of Thunder Road is a song written by actor Robert Mitchum in 1957.

It tells the tale of "Johnny", a bootlegger during Prohibition who would deliver moonshine along local roads at excessive rates of speed to avoid "revenuers".

Johnny's father asks him for his next run to "make this run your last", and that he should not attempt to outrun the revenuers, but if he could not get through safely, to turn himself in. However, Johnny ignores his father's request, and attempts to outrun the law, but fails to successfully negotiate a curve and dies as a result (the last line reads: He left the road at 90, that's all there is to say/The Devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy that day).