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Now let me tell the story, I can tell it all |
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About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol |
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His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load |
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When his engine roared, |
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They called the highway thunder road. |
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Sometimes into ashville, sometimes memphis town |
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The revenoors chased him but they couldn't run him |
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Down |
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Each time they thought they had him, |
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His engine would explode |
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He'd go by like they were standin' still on thunder |
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Road. |
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[Chorus] |
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And there was thunder, thunder over thunder road |
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Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his |
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Load |
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There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the devil's thirst |
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The law they swore they'd get him, but the devil got |
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Him first. |
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On the first of april, nineteen fifty-four |
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A federal man sent word he'd better make his run no |
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More |
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He said two hundred agents were coverin' the state |
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Whichever road he tried to take, they'd get him sure as |
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Fate. |
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Son, his daddy told him, make this run your last |
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Your tank is filled with hundred-proof, |
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You're all tuned up and gassed |
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Now, don't take any chances, if you can't get through |
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I'd rather have you back again than all that mountain |
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Dew |
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[Chorus] |
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Roarin' out of harlan, revving' up his mill |
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He shot the gap at cumberland, |
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And screamed by maynordsville |
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With g-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead |
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The mountain boy took roads that even angels feared |
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To tread. |
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Blazing' right through knoxville, out on kingston pike |
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Then right outside of Beardon, there they made the fatal |
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Strike |
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He left the road at ninety, that's all there is to say |
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The devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy |
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That day |
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[Chorus] |
