I woke up in a hotel, didn't know what to do I turned the TV on, wrote a letter to you The news was talkin' 'bout a dead man up on the interstate Seems they were lookin' for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates Well since I left California, baby, things have gotten worse Seems the land of opportunity for me it's just a curse Tell that judge in Bakersfield my trial'll 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 Now if they'd known what we was up to they wouldn'ta let us in And now we landed in Memphis like original sin 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 There wasn't one a'Lincoln and there wasn't one Dodge 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 livin' in between I was never king of nothin' but this wild weekend Anyway he wouldn't care, hell, he gave 'em to his friends This ain't no hotel I'm writin' you from I'm at the Tennessee prison up at Brushy Mountain Where yours sincerely's doin' five to eight I'm just stampin' out my time makin' Tennessee plates