My Top 20 John Hiatt Songs: Tennessee Plates (#3)

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From Gentleman Jim I move to John Hiatt (who has the same birthday as Reeves, as I mentioned the other day, August 20), my favorite living songwriter. I'm in the top three now, in extremely tall cotton. And, surprise surprise, this is one of his songs that is actually well-known! #3: Tennessee Plates My "welcome to Tennessee" song. I play it every time I get to the Tennessee border. That started accidentally: in 1990 I drove to Nashville to see Hiatt for the first time (on the Stolen Moments tour), naturally blasting Hiatt music on the cassette deck. When I got to the Tennessee border this song was playing, and a tradition was born. I mentioned this is one of Hiatt's better-known songs (certainly not in the realm of "Thing Called Love" or "Angel Eyes," though), thanks to a movie I despise. Charlie Sexton was singing this song in the bar scene in Thelma and Louise. (Hiatt and movies, I swear. Another one of his songs, "Spy Boy," was used in my absolute least favorite Al Pacino movie, Cruising. But, having said that, Don Henley's stunning version of Hiatt's "Through Your Hands" was featured in Michael, and Hiatt did most of the original music in the Disney film The Country Bears.) Given that scene, a lot of people probably know this song, even if they don't know John Hiatt wrote it. And oh, what a great song he wrote. A full-tilt rocker, fueled by Sonny Landreth's great guitar work, that is one of the funniest songs you're going to hear this side of Weird Al. A man meets a woman in Nevada and they go on a crime spree ("three bank jobs later, four cars hot-wired, we crossed the Mississippi like an oil slick fire"). They decide they need a new car, "a Cadillac with Tennessee plates," and what better place to go than Graceland to get one? "There must've been a dozen of 'em parked in that garage," and it really wouldn't be "stealing," they rationalize: "Anyway, he wouldn't care. Hell, he gave 'em to his friends!" Needless to say, he ends up at Brushy Mountain, where his job is making Tennessee plates. Classic Hiatt, start to finish. Tennessee Plates Written by John Hiatt and Mike Porter From Slow Turning, 1988 Tennessee Plates in Germany!