There’s this big old Cadillac
Nobody’s touched her since the last fuel shortage came down
I first laid eyes on this Cadillac
Just sitting in the car park on the way out of town
But I’m gonna make that Caddy mine baby
And one day I’m gonna be driving her around
Well, she’s got a five hundred engine
Power steering, seats, and brakes
When I think of myself driving her
Man, how my whole body shakes
But I’m gonna gun that engine one day soon
No matter what it takes
Well, on the West Coast they lay back
Back East they load up on booze
Down in Texas everything’s big
And in Chicago they still sing the blues
But me, my home is that Fleetwood
When I take her for a cruise
Well, she doesn’t need a another rock’n’roll song
Bruce and Chuck took care of that
And it doesn’t really matter
If she’s red, white, pink, or black
And I’ll pay for everything she wants
‘Cause I love my Cadillac
©2024 The Hesh Inc.
I always had a "thang" for Cadillacs ... not quite sure why; maybe because my father drove them as soon as he was able to afford them. The first one he had was a 1973 Sedan de Ville, lemon yellow with white vinyl roof. It had all the tchatchkes, including a state-of-the-art 8-track tape player. His next car, in 1975, was a Lincoln Town Car, which I liked better, actually, but my dad regretfully had to unload it because it had a leak in the trunk that no mechanic could find or fix. So the next one was a beige 1977 Sedan de Ville, but by the time he got that Cadillac had begun to downsize their models in the wake of the first gas shortage. Then we moved to Israel, where a Cadillac was an impractical, ostentatious luxury, so he opted for a smaller GM make, an Oldsmobile Cutlass, which gave him no small amount of grief. He went through a number of other makes, but he told me that there's nothing better than driving a Cadillac.
Later on, when I was in the army, I was taking the bus back to my base after a weekend's leave, and as the bus made to leave Jerusalem, I spied a big, old, dusty Fleetwood, 1960s vintage, in all its tailfinned glory. I wanted that babe so bad ... but I never had the chance to make her mine. Another soldier friend of mine said he had seen the same Caddy on the way out of town and expressed a similar sentiment. Another friend, upon hearing about my hankering for the dusty old Fleetwood, said that if I bought it, I'd have to buy a gas station to tow behind me, the thing is such a guzzler. I said, if I can afford the Caddy, I can afford the gas too! (Even in Israel, where gas is four times as much per gallon as the US!) Then, once I came back to the USA and got my driver's license, I drove a succession of compacts and vans. I'd drive around town in the beat-up, third-hand Datsun I bought from my ex-wife when we split up, and that's what people got used to seeing me in. Then the Datsun met a flood, and that was the end of that. For awhile I had the chance to borrow my girlfriend's father's "spare" car, a 1980s-model Fleetwood, and when I drove that one through town, some of the familiar faces who were used to seeing me behind the wheel of the Datsun did a triple take. It was a funny moment.
Musically, this is a straightforward blues tune, perhaps inspired by Steve Miller's "Mercury Blues." Never recorded or even performed, but should I ever have the chance, I'll be sure to include some low-end twangy guitar riffs like all the classic Cadillac songs.