"The Ballad of Thunder Road" - Robert Mitchum, 1957 (folk pop)

Let me tell the story, I can tell it all
About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol
His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load
When his engine roared, they called the highway Thunder Road.

Sometimes into Ashville, sometimes Memphis town
The revenoors chased him but they couldn’t run him down
Each time they thought they had him, his engine would explode
He`d go by like they were standin’ still on Thunder Road.

And there was thunder, thunder over Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load
There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the Devil’s thirst
The law they swore they`d get him, but the Devil got him first.

On the first of April, nineteen fifty-four
A Federal man sent word he’d better make his run no more
He said two hundred agents were coverin’ the state
Whichever road he tried to take, they’d get him sure as fate.

Son, his Daddy told him, make this run your last
The tank is filled with hundred-proof, you’re all tuned up and gassed
Now, don’t take any chances, if you can’t get through
I’d rather have you back again than all that mountain dew.

Roarin’ out of Harlan, revvin’ up his mill
He shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville
With T-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead
The mountain boy took roads that even Angels feared to tred.

Blazing right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike,
Then right outside of Bearden, they made the fatal strike.
He left the road at 90; that’s all there is to say.
The devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy that day.

Last month, we catapulted a train off the side of a mountain (well, sort of). For this month's installment of vehicular tragedy, we're sending a car off a mountain cliff at 90 mph.

"The Ballad of Thunder Road", recorded by Robert Mitchum, is actually the theme song for the 1957 film, Thunder Road, which also starred Mitchum. In the movie, Robert Mitchum played a bootlegger in the 1950s named Lucas Doolin who ran moonshine along the local roads at excessive speeds to escape the revenuers. I can hear you thinking, "But I thought this blog was about preservation of fact, not fiction. There are a million fiction songs out there..." and in that you would be correct. But I bet you didn't know that the movie AND the song were inspired by an actual event. Yep, Thunder Road was loosely based on an incident in which a driver was transporting his contraband and was said to have fatally crashed on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee, somewhere between Bearden Hill and Morrell Road. Metro Pulse writer Jack Renfro stated that the incident occurred in 1952 and was witnessed by novelist and playwright James Agee, who passed the story on to Mitchum.

The movie, itself, isn't all that far-fetched as far as runnin' 'shine was concerned. Moonshine is any distilled spirit made in an unlicensed still. Yeast ferments a sugar source to produce ethanol, then the alcohol is extracted through distillation using a still. So, what you're putting in your flex-fuel Chevy Tahoe, well, them thar corn squeezin's is the 'zact same stuff...ethanol. Fifty years ago, it was illegal. Now you can buy it for $2.83/gallon at the fuel stop, but I wouldn't recommend drinking it...not then, and not now, either.

While it is true that the government outlawed moonshining because they didn't make any money off of the operation, if they couldn't tax it, it meant that they also couldn't regulate its production. And if there is one thing that the government actually does a pretty good job of, for the most part, it's food and drug regulation. Moonshine was made from all sorts of questionable substances. Any sugar source was used, including fruit or even tree bark (for flavor). Bootleggers' whiskey usually came out of the still at 100 proof. The more pure the alcohol, the greater the risk for alcohol poisoning. Clandestine labs were set up out in the woods where there was no quality control. Contaminants from a poorly run/made still or bad raw materials often led to fatal conditions, which includes lead poisoning from solder joints and methanol poisoning if too much cellulose got into the mixture. The only purity test for the backwoods bootlegger was to pour some of the 'shine in a spoon and light it on fire. If it burned blue, then they said it was OK (it wasn't very accurate, obviously). Moonshine is, however, not illegal if one concedes for the government to collect its share and regulate the production. It's not illegal to make it for yourself...it's illegal to sell it to others.

Moonshining was a highly profitable business, just as the alcohol industry is today. For mountain people, it was often their only source of income, especially during times of war, depression, or whenever the already tough mountain economy got tougher. Moonshining was actually a family business that was often passed down from one generation to the next. Naturally, the 'shiners (who didn't pay the tax) took it as an offense that the government should intervene on the family business. So, if you're going to make booz and sell it, but not pay the government, then you're going to need someone to transport it...someone who can drive good and fast to outrun the cops (because if the cops didn't know about your operation, your squeezin's probably ain't that great). You need a bootlegger.

In the movie, Mitchum drove a hot-rodded '51 Ford 2-door sedan with a custom tank in the back to hide the moonshine. Bootlegger tricks are as old as the hills those cars and trucks drove on. It wasn't enough just to drive a fast car; you had to drive something that could adequately hide your product. There were false bottoms, false fender wells, hidden compartments, and countless other schemes of false this-or-that to hide the whiskey in case you did get caught. But being caught meant going to jail. Without a bootlegger, you can't get your product to your customers (oh yeah, and the law has probably found your still and dismantled it by now, too). No 'shine, no customers...no money.

The bootleggers would do anything and everything they could to make sure that the whiskey made it to the hands of whoever was paying for it. Often, the entire welfare of the family depended on it. To sustain the production, bootleggers would sometimes take incredible risks such driving at top speeds (during times before the DOT knew things about road safety and crash science) and taking the back roads through hazardous terrain that the vehicle wasn't built for. The possibilities for accidents were the same then as they are today, if not greater. Vehicles weren't equipped with modern safety devices such as an anti-lock braking system, traction control, or airbags, which would have been extremely useful for the man who drove off the side of the mountain.

Moonshiners made their place in American history, but in such a way that they became heroes instead of villains. The bootleggers' hot rod vehicles became a hobby for motorists all over the country, not to mention that their heinous driving gave birth to one of the greatest American sports. Since the bootleggers had to outrun the authorities, they had to upgrade their vehicles. They eventually started getting together and making runs with fellow 'shine runners. They soon began to challenge each other, which ultimately lead to nationally organized stock car races, and in 1948 NASCAR was born.

"The Ballad of Thunder Road" - Robert Mitchum, 1957

And as a special treat, this posting comes with not just one video, but TWO. The film Thunder Road became a cult classic. It played in the drive in movie theaters even into the 1980's where one young man was inspired by the film's theather poster alone and wrote his own song, "Thunder Road". That man is none other than The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

"Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen, 1976

~information squeezed from here and there on a super-fast internet connection.

"Space Oddity" - David Bowie, 1969 (folk rock)

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you

(spoken)
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare

"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows"

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you....

"Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do."

The song's main character, Major Tom, is a fictional astronaut and the story the song tells is that he gets lost in space. The song was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowie planned the writing and release of Space Oddity to coincide with the BBC's media coverage of the launch of the US's Apollo 11 moon landing mission. See...not everything is about war and politics.

Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the moon, launched on July 16, 1969. It was this flight that made history forever and reached Pres. John F. Kennedy's goal when he said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." On July 20, Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin and Neil Alden Armstrong walked on the moon's surface while lunar command module captain, Michael Collins, orbited above.

It was this lunar landing where Neil Armstrong uttered the very famous words, "Houston, Tranquility Base, here. The Eagle has landed." However, unbeknownst to most people, when Armstrong spoke those words, he through Mission Control into somewhat of a tizzy...because nobody at Mission Control had no idea what he was talking about at first.

The call sign Armstrong was supposed to use was Eagle, which was the name of the lunar module (LEM) that actually landed on the moon's surface - the vehicle that carried the two astronauts. It was given the name Eagle because of the bald eagle insignia that it carried. There were actually a few other call signs that NASA toyed with during the planning. Thankfully, the call signs Snowcone and Haystack were quickly changed before being announced to the press.

Tranquility Base, the name Armstrong gave to the Eagle's landing site, was a spot in the southwestern corner of the lunar plain called The Sea of Tranquility, near the craters Sabine and Ritter. The Sea of Tranquility is the name of one a lunar mare (latin for 'sea'). They were called 'seas' by the early astronomers who mistoook them for actual water seas. However, they are not water seas but basaltic plains formed by ancient volcanic eruptions.

During space travel, call signs are given to people and vehicles...never landmarks. However, unlike most names bestowed upon lunar landmarks, in the light of the Apollo 11 mission's huge history-setting success, the designation Tranquility Base was soon officially recognized by NASA and the International Astronomical Union. Because of those famous Armstrong words, Tranquility Base now appears on lunar maps as Statio Tranquillitatis.

And while Neil Armstrong went down in history for his famous, albeit erroneous quote, somehow Houston's response got lost in the shuffle:

Capcom Charles Duke: "Roger, Twan... [correcting himself] Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."

Hey, give the guy a break. He was probably excited. And he had every reason to be because his space flight didn't turn out like Major Tom's. Nope...they saved that for the sequel - Apollo 13.

"Space Oddity" - David Bowie, 1969 (original video and recording)

(gathered from various sources in space...cyberspace, that is)

"London Calling" - The Clash, 1979 (punk)

London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
London is drowning-and I live by the river

London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, an' go it alone
London calling upon the zombies of death
Quit holding out-and draw another breath
London calling-and I don't wanna shout
But when we were talking-I saw you nodding out
London calling, see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one with the yellowy eyes

Now get this
London calling, yeah, I was there, too
An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
After all this, won't you give me a smile?

I never felt so much a' like

Even the punks have something to teach us!

"London Calling" was the first track recorded by this British punk band in 1979 and it reached No. 11 on the UK Singles Chart. Of course, it didn't do very well in the States (reaching only to No. 30 on the Club Chart) because punk music was never intended to be heard by the masses...the "squares". However, "the underground" provided a great place for musicians to vent their political and cultural frustrations without fear of reprisal from the fans or their producing companies. After all, at this time, punk rock especially was about playing what you wanted to play and saying what you had or wanted to say.

The song was written by Clash band members Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. The song revolves around the state of the world's countries nuclear power capabilities, not so much as they appeared in the world in 1979, but it poses more of an apocalyptic look to the possible future of such goings-on. While we have learned to harness nuclear power for the good of humanity, today we are blessed to have a wealth of knowledge and technology at our disposal. However, in the world during which the song was written, bear in mind that in 1979, the home computer consited of an Atari 800 that was really good for playing Pong or Asteroids; nevermind running a dangerous, precision-required nuclear reactor. The technology for ultimate safety just wasn't available. In particular, the song uses the accident which occurred at Three Mile Island as an example, which is noted by the lyrics, "The ice age is coming/The sun's zooming in/Engines stop running/and the wheat is growing thin/a nuclear error but I have no fear..."

Three Mile Island is a civilian (meaning non-military) nuclear power plant located on an island in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was built with two pressurized water reactors. These reactors use ordinary water under high pressure (superheated water) as a coolant. While these types of nuclear reactors are the most common in the world, they do have some severe disadvantages. In order for the superheated water to remain liquid (and not turn to steam), this requires high-strength piping and a heavy pressure vessel. The higher pressure can increase the consequences of a loss of coolant accident, which is a form of nuclear reactor meltdown, which is what happened at Three Mile Island when one of the feedwater pumps broke. In a nutshell (without being too nerdy...after all, this is pop culture) coolant, obviously, keeps things from overheating. You put it in your car. Nuclear particles move around and create friction. When particles are split (fission) or joined together (fusion) friction happens again. Friction causes heat. When your serpentine belt or your water pump break in your car, there is nothing to cool the parts that rub together (like the particles). If you keep driving it, you'll seize your engine. The same thing happens with a nuclear reactor. The particles get too hot and well, there you have meltdown.

The accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 was probably the most significant nuclear accident in the history of the American commercial nuclear power generating industry. Approximately 43,000 curies of radioactive krypton (think Superman) and just under 20 curies of radioactive iodine into the environment. While that sounds very ominous, this incident really wasn't all that big of a deal. There were no deaths recorded, and although 25,000 people lived within 5 miles of the reactor site, there were no reported injuries from radiation.

What made this reactor meltdown so prestigious was general public ingnorance of nuclear power and the lack of information available and understood by the public. For starters, just a few weeks prior to the meltdown, the movie The Chine Syndrome was released...and guess what it's about. Yep. A sci-fi movie about a nuclear reactor meltdown. Also, during this time, there was much political and social activism against nuclear power. To make things worse, during the occurrance, there was a lack of official information available to the public. People like to know what's going on, and when they're not told they panic. There were, though, several mass adverse health affects, however even those have been judged by many epidemiologists to have been stress induced BY the fearful public.

The incident has been a point of interest as an example of how groups of people react and make decisions under stress. There were many decisions made by public officials, plant operators, and the general public that was made based on information that was either non-existent, incorrect, misleading, or irrelevant. However, what we DID learn was that people are afraid of what they don't understand. Nuclear physics is not something that the average person is wired to comprehend, so even something as innocuous as Three Mile Island can cause a panic. What this incident also taught us was that these things should NOT be taken lightly. As a result, safety in operation of nuclear power plants has been greatly improved. Today, we have emergency plans, standardized checklists, trouble tags and alarms - all kinds of bells and whistles and fancy gizmos on these complicated things that help us all sleep better at night instead of fearing total apocalyptic chaos...like The Clash did.

By the way, the repeated lyrics (and title) "London calling" refers to the BBC World Service's radio station identification during WWII. "This is London calling..." was heard during opening news/informational broadcasts and emergency and broadcast interruption to occupied areas.

"London Calling" - The Clash, 1979

(all information in this entry is hoping to be correct...and not irrelevant, having been gleaned from all kinds of places from London to Pennsylvania)