Prison-Themed top Ten: Tennessee Plates (#3)

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There’s no way I could have planned this. It’s purely coincidental. This half of the double-barrel countdown about prison and jail songs (songs with those words in the the title and songs that are set in prison) is a perfect companion piece to today’s jail song. And here it is. #3: Tennessee Plates - John Hiatt One of my all-time favorite John Hiatt songs tells the tale of a man writing a letter from the now-closed Brushy Mountain penitentiary, detailing his crime spree. He starts his criminal ways in Bakersfield and moves on to “somewhere in Nevada,” where he picks up a female hitchhiker who quickly becomes his accomplice. “Three bank jobs later, four cars hotwired,” they end up in Memphis, intent on taking one of Elvis’ Cadillacs. He has a simple rationale for why this would be perfectly legal: “He wouldn’t care. Hell, he gave ‘em to his friends!” Good explanation, but he ends up “doing five to eight” anyway. Tennessee Plates Written by John Hiatt and Mike Porter Recorded by John Hiatt From Slow Turning, 1988 She saw him singing once when she was 17: