| "One Piece at a Time" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Johnny Cash | ||||
| from the album One Piece at a Time | ||||
| B-side | "Go On Blues" | |||
| Released | March 1976 | |||
| Genre | Rockabilly | |||
| Length | 4:00 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Wayne Kemp | |||
| Producer |
Charlie Bragg / Don Davis |
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| Audio sample | ||||
| file info · help | ||||
| Johnny Cash singles chronology | ||||
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"One Piece at a Time" is a humorous rockabilly song written by Wayne Kemp[1] and recorded by Johnny Cash in 1976. It would be the last song performed by Cash to reach number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.
Contents |
| Chart (1976) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 29 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks | 6 |
| Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 40 |
| Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks | 1 |
| U.K. Singles Chart | 32 |
The song tells of a man who, in 1949, leaves his home in Kentucky to pursue work at General Motors in Detroit, Michigan. The singer assembles wheels on Cadillacs, watching each one roll by day after day on the assembly line, knowing that he will never be able to afford one.
Beginning almost immediately, he and a co-worker decide to steal a Cadillac, using their assembly line jobs to obtain the parts via salami slicing. He takes the small parts home hidden in his large lunchbox; larger parts are smuggled out in his co-worker's mobile home.
The process of accumulating all the necessary parts turns out to take over 24 years (the song mentions that the transmission was from 1953 and the engine was from 1973), but once they have what they think is a complete car, they assemble the pieces. The result is an odd-looking Cadillac created from parts of many different models and whose pieces don't fit together very well (for example, it had only one tail fin and three headlights, two on the left and one on the right).
The singer's wife is surprised at the outcome but wants a ride. However, the folks at the courthouse were not as pleased – it would take the "whole staff" to type up the vehicle title, which would end up weighing 60 pounds.
The song ends with a truck driver inquiring about the "psychobilly Cadillac". After saying that "you could say I went down to the factory and picked it up, it's cheaper that way", the reply echoes Leroy Van Dyke's song "The Auctioneer" as the owner lists all the model years (starting with '49 and continuing into the early 70s) that went into making the car.
| Preceded by "After All the Good Is Gone" by Conway Twitty |
Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single May 29-June 6, 1976 |
Succeeded by "I'll Get Over You" by Crystal Gayle |
| RPM Country Tracks number-one single June 19, 1976 |
Succeeded by "El Paso City" by Marty Robbins |