Tennessee Plates

(album: Slow Turning - 1988)

I woke up in a hotel and I didn't know what to do
I turned the TV on and wrote a letter to you
The news was talking 'bout a dragnet up on the interstate
Said they were looking for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

Since I left California baby, things have gotten worse
Seems the land of opportunity for me is just a curse
Tell that judge in Bakersfield that my trial will have to wait
Down here they're looking for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

It was somewhere in Nevada, it was cold outside
She was shivering in the dark, so I offered her a ride
Three bank jobs later, four cars hot wired
We crossed the Mississippi like an oil slick fire

If they'd known what we was up to they wouldn't 'a let us in
When we landed in Memphis like original sin
Up Elvis Presley Boulevard to the Graceland gates
See we were looking for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

Well, there must have been a dozen of them parked in that garage
And there wasn't one Lincoln and there wasn't one Dodge
And there wasn't one Japanese model or make
Just pretty, pretty Cadillacs with Tennessee plates

She saw him singing once when she was seventeen
And ever since that day she's been living in between
I was never king of nothing but this wild weekend
Anyway he wouldn't care, hell he gave them to his friends

Well this ain't no hotel I'm writing you from
It's the Tennessee prison up at Brushy Mountain
Where yours sincerely's doing five to eight
Stamping out my time making Tennessee plates