#126 – Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale
#126 – Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale
-by Stacy Garwood-
Earl’s Dead – A love story.
Although the car sale tag grabs your attention, this song is a whole lot more than a For Sale Advertisement. So, Earl’s Dead, A love story! Or that is how I like to think of this song. Because it is a love story, with cannons and Cadillacs and an epic send-off straight into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a song that tells a story, both intriguing and sweet, that touches on the adventurous soul of people who choose to live outside the box, in the uniquely humorous and sentimental way that Jimmy Buffett can do. Earl’s Dead -Cadillac For Sale.
“Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale, an Eldorado sits out on the Tamiami Trail, sign on the windshield tells the whole tale, Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale…”
Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale was released on JB’s 2013 album Song’s From St. Somewhere. It was one of three songs on the album that was written exclusively by Jimmy, the other two being Rue De La Guitare and I’m No Russian. The album reached #4 on the US Billboard 200 chart and #1 on US Billboard Independent Albums chart. It was recorded at Jimmy’s very own Key West studio Shrimpboat Sound, released by Jimmy’s very own Mailboat Records, and produced by Jimmy’s longtime bandmates and friends Michael Utley and Mac McAnnaly. When you have a recipe that works, why mess it up, and Jimmy was a man who knew what worked well for him, his career and his fans.
This album has a particular vibe that is very unique to Jimmy’s music and style, and a song like Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale fits right into the quirky gulf coast vibe that Jimmy pioneered, touching not only unique characters from the southern states, but unique locations, as well. It’s also touching and humorous and has an underlying gentle connection to an unusual type of love.
“Now a Cadillac was always an Elvis thing, polished chrome and gold it was the birth of bling, they came with personality they made you a star, God may have made the earth, but man made that car…”
The lyrics dive right into the joy of a certain type of flashy car and talk about Cadillac’s being an “Elvis thing“, and I can certainly agree, although I think of Elvis having pink Cadillac’s while Earl’s was red, I can only imagine that Earl was probably a fan of Elvis Presely, the King of Rock and Roll. I decided to dive a little bit into Earl’s prized Caddy, an El Dorado Biarritz with a hydramatic and shark-like fins. It seems like the least I can do for Earl is to investigate the car he loved so much. And the car that drew Moonvine’s attention in the song. And I like history as well as puzzles, so this should be a fun learning experience.
“He was a circus man when they first met, he was fired from a cannon into a net, the money was good he always hit the bullseye, savin’ for the car one day he would buy…”
Cadillac Motor Company was founded in 1902 and is one of the oldest automotive brands in the world. It was named after Antoine de la Mothe. Sieur de Cadillac, the French explorer who founded Detroit, Michigan. It is his coat de arms that is the iconic Cadillac logo. Cadillac was purchased by General Motors in 1909, and even only after seven years, Cadillac established its name and brand as a top luxury car company. The Cadillac brand still is considered the luxury brand under GM Motors, which also includes Chevrolet, GMC and Buick.
Cadillac promoted their luxury cars with the name El Dorado, starting in 1952. The El Dorado nameplate was a nod to both El Dorado, the mythical city of gold, and dorado, a word meaning gilded. Safe to say, Cadillac was promoting this line as very elite with the nod to all that is gold. It was meant to be a special promotion for the 50th anniversary of the Cadillac company, but the following year, Cadillac again reused the name El Dorado on a special convertible edition. After that point, the name became tied to the luxury two-door coupe models.
After this, more divisions appeared under the name and brand of Cadillac El Dorado, including specific name division for hardtop and convertible designs. The El Dorado Seville nameplate was connected to the two-door hardtop coupes, and was named after the city of Seville, Spain. The El Dorado Biarritz nameplate was connected to the two-door convertible coupe and was named after the luxury seaside resort in France. Both nameplates started in 1956, with the final year of the Seville in 1960 and the final year of the Biarritz in 1964. In 1965, the nameplate designation for El Dorado was changed to the Fleetwood El Dorado.
“No, he wasn’t thinkin’ of some average ride, a human cannonball has a lot of pride, if you’re gonna live large you need a hydramatic, Eldorado Biarritz for this wild acrobatic…”
The Cadillac El Dorado consisted of twelve generations, spanning six decades, with 2002 being the final production year for the El Dorado. This spanned another fifty-year epoch in Cadillac’s history, with Cadillac being a century old and El Dorado being fifty years old. Cadillac is still being produced by General Motors, proudly waving the luxury banner for GM.
Hydra Matic, more commonly referred to as a hydramatic, as Jimmy refers to it in the song lyrics, was a state of the art (for its time) automatic transmission. It came in three and four speed varieties, and GM was the herald of the four-speed Hydra Matic transmission, introducing it in 1939 and producing it until 1956, when newer technology replaced it. These automatic transmissions had four standard forward gears and a reverse gear. Today, in the automotive industry, it’s almost impossible to find a standard-clutch transmission, and almost everything is automatic, but at the time they were developed, the Hydra Matic self-shifting transmission was the height of luxury autos. And Earl had himself a luxury Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz.
“And Earl’s is red with shark-like fins, and that is where this little love tale begins, the rear view mirror puts it all in scale, Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale…”
With shark-like fins. Which leads us down another interesting detail of many cars in the fifties and sixties, and not just Cadillac’s or General Motor automobiles. All Cadillac’s since the mid-forties were sporting tail fins on their trim, but the 1955 El Dorado sported a totally different fin style than its predecessors, or any other car manufacturer. Those fins stood out in the showroom, and they stood out on the street. The 1957 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz Convertible and Seville Coupe were known for their shark fin design, with the 1959 El Dorado Biarritz known for its excessive fins, the largest fins in automobile history, sitting at forty-five inches high, with dual bullet shaped taillights which made it look like a Rocketship. It was known as the “King of the Fin”, and those impressive tail fins created huge blinds spots in the rear of the car, and the car was an excessive nineteen feet long. It’s a car like no other, and when you see one, you can’t help but stop and admire it. The ’57, ’58, and ’59 Cadillac’s are highly sought after by collectors for their impressive body trim. And they are not cheap!
Which year was Earl’s El Dorado Biarritz? I have absolutely no idea, so that can be left up to our individual imaginations. Whatever year it was, it was red, it hauled a human-shooting cannon behind it, it traveled up and down and probably across North America, and it had enough style to have caught Moonvine’s attention on the Tamiami Trail.
“So they drove down to Panama and back up to Maine, had so much fun, hell, they did it again, crossing cities off the map as they shot down the road, knowin’ towin’ a cannon, things could explode…”
Which leads us to another interesting tidbit that Jimmy wove into this song. A very iconic bit of highway in southern Florida, US Highway 41, that runs from Tampa to Miami, trailing down the Gulf Coast side of the peninsula, across the Florida Everglades and hitting US Highway 1 in Miami. It was a long, challenging project, building a road that connected the west and eastern sides of the Florida Peninsula, cutting across the Everglades was considered an impossible feat, but in 1915, a plan was placed into action, and by 1928, the highway was open to travelers. But it was expensive and extremely difficult to build, hence the time-consuming construction process.
Prior to the construction of the Tamiami Trail (get it, Tampa to Miami), the primary way people traveled around southern Florida was by boat, but this automotive route changed the flow of people moving around Florida in drastic ways. It also broadly changed the eco-system, effectively draining the everglades in places, lowering the level of the Lake Okeechobee, and shifting nature in southern Florida in ways that were probably unexpected at the time of its creation. Lake Okeechobee is a massive freshwater lake in central Florida, and to lower its level to make the construction of the highway possible, several large canals were built to divert the water, which was a huge endeavor, including the use of 2.6 million sticks of dynamite in the process of construction.
The Tamiami Trail cut through Seminole (whom Moonvine is connected to) and Miccosukee lands, and today those tribes are playing an important role in helping to restore the diverse and unique ecosystems that were so drastically altered by the highway project. Like many things in life, it is time that shows us the intense causation and effect of these types of projects. There is always good and bad mixed together, and while there has been an obvious downside to such intense projects, it also opened the world of the Everglades to a huge population of traveler’s who otherwise would never have had the chance to see the unique Everglades in reality.
In 2000, I myself traveled across the Everglades, and while I took a route that included Interstate 75, when I turned east, instead of the Everglades Parkway, I did chose to head a little south and drive across the “River of Grass Greenway”, part of the Tamiami Trail, and it gave this Montana girl a unique experience of seeing nature that was very unlike the high plains and prairies of Eastern Montana. Just as the Tamiami Trail has done for countless people over the years, and in our love story by Jimmy, gave Moonvine and Earl a place to start their story and life together.
“And now Earl is wed, Moonvine’s got her veil, they’re towin’ that cannon down the Tamiami Trail, he’s got the talent, she’s got brains, Earl and Moonvine, left the land of sugar cane…”
And much Jimmy, who liked to adventure domestic or abroad, so did Earl and Moonvine. We are told that they took Earl’s unique talent and Moonvine’s astute brain and pieced together an exciting life together. The song never tells us how long Earl and Moonvine traveled together after they got hitched, only that they made to Maine and Panama more than once.
“She was an Everglades girl, partly Seminole, with an urge for goin’, and a wanderin’ soul, with a name like Moonvine she knew she’d never stay, that handsome human bullet stole her heart away…”
I love the glimpses of how Earl and Moonvine met. We know Earl had a stylish car and that he was handsome. We know that Moonvine had an urge to travel, a wandering soul and was part Seminole. She saw the car, he saw her, and a love story was born. An adventurous life was born. We get a few details but not too many, it keeps the listener curious and allows their imagination to flow like the melody.
“It was a Saturday night after the midnight show, she was starin’ at the car when he said “hello”, didn’t take too much to move her off the reservation, just a good lookin’ boy with the right transportation…”
I wonder how old Earl and Moonvine were when they met, how many years they spent together traveling, and what happened, not only to the car, but to the cannon.
“Now all the way back to the time of James Dean, car crash songs chewed up heroes and machines, sick minds, stop signs and uncontrolled swerves, but Early and his Caddy could handle killer curves…”
The lyrics also don’t tell us how Earl died, only that he did. It can be inferred that it was not a car crash that got him, because “he could handle killer curves“, a nod to the road and perhaps Moonvine’s shapely figure. It also mentions with a touch of nostalgia the era back when cars had impressive fins and people emulated wild boys like James Dean. But the idea of “killer curves” always brings to mind the Jan and Dean song Dead Man’s Curve. Now, not everyone may know this song, but my Mom has a special place in her heart for the musical duo Jan and Dean. And because of her, I also share that love.
Now in the iconic Jan and Dean song, the driver was cruising in a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, another General Motor’s car that had iconic fins. However, on the Stingray, the fins were not just for style but were necessary for function. The fins housed the cooling function for the brakes, and these cars were definitely designed for driving fast and braking hard. I am not sure that a Stingray would have had the ability to pull a human canon down a highway, but it seems to me that Jimmy is nodding to this song, and this piece of Americana too. The driver in that song clearly didn’t have Earl’s driving skills.
Ironically, and quite tragically, Jan Berry, a founding member of Jan and Dean, and cowriter of Dead Man’s Curve (along with Beach Boy Brian Wilson) was involved in a serious car crash two years after the song was a hit, on the same street mentioned in the song. While the accident didn’t kill him, it left him in a coma for six weeks, and with severe brain damage. A tragic accident that affected not only a budding and brilliant music career but affected his life. Jimmy was just starting his musical career around this time, and I have to think that in his own song, which clearly mentions “killer curves“, he is nodding to the Dead Man’s Curve as well as the man who made the song a sixties hit.
Every time I hear Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale, it makes me think of country music and other songs that have featured an unlucky Earl. Of course, the Dixie Chicks, or The Chicks, as they are now known by, have the iconic song Goodbye Earl. And while that Earl was a perpetrator of domestic abuse, who ended up dead in a car trunk, and then ended up in a swamp or lake, much like the Everglades or Lake Okeechobee. I am also reminded that Goodbye Earl is the farthest thing from a love song, Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale is all about love. Love of perfect parters, but also love of flashy Elvis-inspired cars, love of travel and adventure
“Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale, an Eldorado sits out on the Tamiami Trail, sign on the windshield tells the whole tale, Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale…”
And just to circle back for a moment, the namesake of the Cadillac brand, with a title and fancy name, was born Antoine Laumet, the son of a middle-class lawyer who improved his finances by marrying the daughter of a merchant and a landowner. Antione himself spent a rigorous youth studying theology in a Jesuit institution before at the age of 17, joining the army and beginning a life of adventure. He spent seven years in Europe before leaving France under questionable circumstances, perhaps immigrating illegally. No known portrait of him exists, but he had a colorful life, make as many friends as enemies and traveled to the French Colonies in the new world, eventually altering his name and blessing himself with a title and a coat of arms. Among many accomplishments, he married the daughter of a Quebec merchant.
Eventually his adventures lead him to work as an explorer, and through questionable actions, including accusations of supplying alcohol to the Natives Americans in the Great Lakes area, and directly butting up against the Jesuit missionaries around the lakes. In spite of acquiring new enemies, he was awarded the command of a new military instillation, called Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit. At one point, he was recalled to Quebec because of accusations of abuse of authority and trafficking of alcohol and furs.
Eventually troops at Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit were ordered to return to Montreal, including Cadillac, who was then given command of La Louisiane territory. Instead of initially taking up this command, he and his family returned to France. Several years later, he did come to La Louisiane, in the area that is now known as Mobile, Alabama, were he eventually stirred up more controversy, before returning to France for the rest of his life. He was given the Order of Saint Louis and awarded his parents’ estates, unexpected because he was not the first-born son. He spent years in court, fighting for the rights of the estate he had founded in “the straits” around Detroit. After being successful in claiming this land, he promptly sold the land in Canada and became a governor of Castelsarrisin, France, very close to his birthplace.
While he left behind no formal portrait, or even a drawing, which is potentially because they were all destroyed by his enemies, he left behind a intriguing legacy, including founding Detroit, Michigan, also known as Motor City, and his title, whether legitimate or not, still graces the name of one of America’s luxury motor companies.
Honestly, with a history like this, it’s surprising he didn’t end as a character in a Jimmy Buffett song. I guess, in a way, since Earl’s Cadillac is practically a character in the song, and so important to this story, he did.
“So when the big top folded, Early took his last drive, Moonvine kissed her boy goodbye, his exit had arrived, she shot his ashes ‘cross the Gulf from that ancient rusty gun, nomads know when the show is done…”
The song doesn’t let us know what happened to Moonvine before or after her life with Earl, and while I do wonder about her, and if she ever got that Cadillac sold, I have a feeling that Earl is still looking out for her, from the spirit side of the world.
“And Earl’s dead, he’s been airmailed, and that Eldorado’s waitin’ on the Tamiami Trail, for some shameless entertainer to blow in like a gale, Earl’s dead – Cadillac for sale…
Stacy
Please enjoy Earl’s Dead – Cadillac For Sale. I have included the link below. Enjoy!
2013 Studio Version:
The link is from Jimmy’s official YouTube channel, which I have no personal affiliation with.
More links that may be of interest:
https://www.jimmybuffett.com/description?albumId=58
https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/klockau-classics/1955-cadillac-eldorado-coral-shark
https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/334193
