Well, you may go to college
You may go to school
You may have a pink Cadillac
But don’t you be nobody’s fool.

—from Arthur Gunter’s “Baby, Let’s Play House,”
recorded in 1955 by Elvis Presley with additional lyrics

•••

On this day in 1957
Elvis plays the Lincoln Bowl
in Tacoma, Washington,
before 6,000 screaming fans—

two years after he hits the national
charts and signs a record deal, when he
buys his first Caddy, a 1954 Fleetwood
Series 60. In pink. Which, several months
later, goes up in flames and dies by side
of the road between Hope and Texarkana.

But he’s Elvis. He buys a replacement.
In blue. Has a neighbor on Lamar Avenue
repaint the new model in a shade later
dubbed Elvis Rose, which he gives to his
mama, who does not drive. So Elvis does.

It’s the thought, of course.

But it is Bruce who, seven years
after the King’s death, brings the pink
Cadillac to life for me in his raspy baritone,
on the B side of a 45 with a driving bass
line and Clarence’s wailing sax:

I love you for your pink Cadillac,
crushed velvet seats, riding in the back
cruising down the street, waving to the girls,
feeling out of sight, spending all my money
on a Saturday night….

Elvis’s ride lives enshrined at Graceland,
of course, and I wonder how many older
ladies and perhaps not a few men swoon
over that glamorous symbol of luxury
and pizzazz. I fear, should I find myself
there one day, I might do the same—
not because of the man who owned it
but because of the song that has thrummed
through my brain for nearly four decades:

Some folks say it’s too big
and uses too much gas.
But my love is bigger than a Honda.
Yeah, it’s bigger than a Subaru.
Man, there’s only one thing,
only one car that’ll do….

And though my love is bigger than
the Hyundai in my driveway, it’s gotta
sound system that’ll crank up Bruce
so he and Elvis and I can motor down
the highway singing with all our might:

Honey, I just wonder what you do there
in the back of your pink Cadillac,
pink Cadillac,
pink Cadillac,
pink Cadillac….

•••

You can listen to Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 recording of “Pink Cadillac” here.