“Dead Skunk” is a 1972 novelty song by Loudon Wainwright III. Released as a single in November 1972, it eventually peaked at number 16 on the Billboard charts on March 31, 1973. The song appears on Wainright’s 1972 album Album 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 people as they drive by. 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.”)

Crossing 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
Stinking to high heaven

Take a whiff on me, that ain’t no rose
Roll up your 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 stinking 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
Stinking 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
Stinking to high heaven
All over the road
Technicolor

Oh, you got pollution
It’s dead, it’s in the middle
And it’s stinking to high, high heaven