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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe true story behind Arlo Guthrie's Thanksgiving staple, "Alice's Restaurant"
It's a true story.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/11/21/18104601/alices-restaurant-arlo-guthrie-thanksgiving
. . .
And Guthrie was, in fact, disqualified from the draft because of his arrest record. I just couldnt believe it, he told NPR in 2005. And so I turned it into a song. It took about a year to put together, and Ive been telling it ever since just about.
The song that Guthrie put together and has continued singing ever since is a kind of scathing ode to bureaucratic idiocy, to a system that so prizes conformity that it treats littering as a scandalous sin even as it celebrates military violence. And at the end, it becomes a protest song.
The only reason Im / Singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar / Situation, or you may be in a similar situation, Guthrie explains. And if youre in a / Situation like that theres only one thing you can do and thats walk into / The shrink wherever you are, just walk in say, Shrink, You can get / Anything you want, at Alices restaurant. And walk out.
The song, Guthrie proclaims, will become a movement: the Alices Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement. A massacree is a series of absurd events, so the Alices Restaurant Movement is against absurdity and in favor of reason. It is against arresting someone for littering and in favor of ending wars.
Alices Restaurant had its radio premiere in February of 1967 on New York Citys WBAI-FM, in a live performance, and it almost immediately became a runaway hit. Guthrie released a recording of another live performance in October of that year the recording that radio stations play now and thats when the song started to become a Thanksgiving institution.
Its celebrating idiocy you might say, Guthrie said in 2005. . . .
pecosbob
(7,537 posts)We are the Group W bench...
CousinIT
(9,241 posts)?
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,328 posts)Lindsay
(3,276 posts)from WCAU in Philadelphia, some time between that first radio performance and the record release.
It was wonderful!
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)perform that song and quite a few others when he was touring the Alice Restaurant 50th Anniversary. He is still a great performer.
DFW
(54,365 posts)He regularly performs at Payomet in Truro, MA in the summer when I am there, and we go see him whenever we can.
His shows are always sold out (of course!).
Alliepoo
(2,215 posts)Ive had it sung to me many times thru the years when Ive met people and they learn that my name is Alice!
blogslut
(37,999 posts)Hekate
(90,656 posts)My gods that was a looooong time ago.
Straw Man
(6,623 posts)... is there anyone who knows the song that doesn't know the story behind it?
I love that Arlo's address is given as "Howard Beach. N.Y." That's where Woody and Marjorie lived. So Arlo was either still living at home or still had his parents' address on his driver's license.