The song is musically a simple folk song based on acoustic guitar, but accompanied by drums and strings. The lyrics describe a dead skunk in the middle of a busy road and the smell it produces for pedestrians. Wainwright said the song was an accident, written in 15 minutes.
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 was the only record to chart for Wainwright.
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 Ballgame" as the 7th inning stretch song at Georgia Institute of Technology Russ Chandler Baseball Stadium.
(wikipedia)
(songfacts)
Wainwright confessed it only took about 12 minutes to pen "Dead Skunk," which became his most well-known song. The singer's brief sniff of fame left him with a foul odor. "Yeah, and it was revolting in some ways, horrible and I hated it, because it was grotesque," said Wainwright to the A.V. Club."It can be grotesque at that level where you are riding around in cars and there are 14-year-old kids pressing their faces up against the window. For no reason other than your song is on the radio. It made me very uncomfortable, particularly at that time. I imagine that now I would see it with a little more humor and detachment, but when I was 25 and it happened to me, it kind of blew me away."
Dutch Cover about a whit duck on the middle of the road. 1976
P Koelewijn wrote the dutch text.
