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 upon 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 is 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't 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 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 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      This ain't no hotel, I'm writin' you from   Now it's a Tennessee prison up at Brushy Mountain   Where yours sincerely's doin' five to eight   I'm just stampin' out my time makin' Tennessee plates