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 talkin' 'bout a dragnet up on the interstate


Said they were lookin' 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 lookin' for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates




It was somewhere in Nevada, it was cold outside


She was shiverin' 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 lookin' 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 nothin' but this wild weekend

Anyway he wouldn't care, hell he gave them to his friends





Well this ain't no hotel I'm writin' you from

It's the Tennessee prison up at Brushy Mountain


Where yours sincerely's doin' five to eight


Stampin' out my time makin' Tennessee plates