Alice's Restaurant

Arlo Guthrie

This song is called Alice's Restaurant.

It's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant

is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song.

That's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant.

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Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago - that's two years ago

on Thanksgiving when my friend and I went up to visit Alice

at the restaurant but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives

in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray

and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower since they took out

all the pews, they got a lot 'a room downstairs where the pews used to be in

and havin all that room, seen as they took out all the pews, they decided

that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, found all the garbage, and we figured it'd be a friendly

gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump.

So we took the half a ton of garbage and put it in the back of

a red VW microbus, took shovel's and rakes and implements of

destruction and headed on toward the city dump. Well we got there and

there was a big sign and a chain across saying closed on Thanksgiving.

We'd never heard of a dump closed on thanksgiving before, and with

tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another

place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the

side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the

bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided

one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring

that one up we decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a

thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't

get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer

Obie. Said "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a

half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any

information bout it". I said "Yes Sir Officer Obie, I cannot tell a

lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone

we finally came to the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down

and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him

at the police officer's station, so we got in the red VW microbus

with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and

headed on to the police officer's station.

Now friends,there was only one or two things Obie could a done

at the police station and the first was he could have given us a medal

for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very

likely,and we didn't expect it , and the other thing was he could have

bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage about the

vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the

police officer's station there was a third possibility that we hadn't

counted upon, and we was both imediately arrested, handcuffed, and I

said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on."

He said "Shutup kid. Get in the back of the patrol car".

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and

drove to the - quote - Scene of the crime - unquote. I won't tell you about

the town of Stockbridge Massachusets where this is all happened here,

they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but

when we got to the 'Scene of the crime' there was five police officers

and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty

years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.

And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment they had hanging

around the police officer's station. They was taking plastic tyre

track, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven

eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a

paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be

used in evidence against us. They took picture's of the approach,

the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not

to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail, Obie said he was going to

put us in the cell said "Kid,I'm going to put you in the cell, I want

your wallet and your belt." I said "Obie, I can understand you

wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but

why do you want my belt?" and he said "Kid,we don't want any

hangings!" I said "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for

littering?" Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause

he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and

drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars,

throw out the roll of toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll

and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five

hours later that Alice, (remember Alice? This is a song about Alice),

Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the said, bailed

us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another

thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the

next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten

colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the

back of each one, sat down. Man came in, said: All rise. We stood up,

and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures

and the judge walked in sat down with the seeing eye dog, and he sat down,

we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty-seven

eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph

on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.And then at

twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and

arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, cause

Obie had cometo the realisation that this was a typical case of American

blind justice,and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge

wasn't going to look at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy

photographs with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of

each one explaining what each one was to be used in evidence against us.

And we was fined fivty dollars and had to pick up the garbage in the snow,

but thats not what I came to tell you about.

We got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall street,

where you get injected, inspected, detected infected negleced and selected.

I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in,

sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my

best when I went in that morning. 'Cause I wanted to look like the all

American kid from New York City, mean I had to feel like the, I wanted to

BE the all American kid from New York, and I walked in and I was

hungdown, brungdown, hungup, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things.

And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a pice of paper said

"Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room sixhundred-four."

I went up there said "Shrink, I want to kill, I wanna I wanna kill. KILL.

I wanna, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.

Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." and I started

jumpin' up and down yelling "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin' up

and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling "KILL,

KILL". And the seargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the

hall, said "you're our boy".

Proceded on down the hall gettin all sorts of injections, inspections,

detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to

me at the thing there, and I was there two hours, three hours, four

hours! I was there for a long time going through all kind's of mean

nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there and they

was inspecting injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving

no part untouched. Proceeded through. And when I finally came to the

see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big

thing there, I walked up and said "what do you want?" - "Kid, we only

got one question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacree,

with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and

suddenly he stopped me right there and said "Kid,did you ever go to court?"

I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour

glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back

of each one, and he stoped me right there and said "Kid, I want you to go

and sit down on that bench that says 'Group W' - - NOW kid!"

And I walked over to the bench there, and there's Group W, which is

where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army

after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean

nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father

stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the

bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible

crime-type guys sitting bench next to me. And the meanest nastyest

uglyest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to

me and he was mean 'n' nasty 'n' ugly 'n' horrible and all kind of

things and he sat down next to me and said "Kid, what ya get?". I

said "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay fivty dollars and pick up the

garbage.". He said "What were you arrested for?" and I said "Littering".

And they all moved away from me on the bench there,and a hairy eyeball

and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said "And creating a

nuisance." They all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time

on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping all

kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And

everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things,

until the seargent came over, had some paper in his hand said.

"Kids,this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-lines

we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-all-the-things

you-gotta-say-things-about-the-crime-arresting-officer's-name-all-the

things-you-gotta-say", and talked for fourty-five minutes and nobody

understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the form

and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the

massacre with the four part harmony, wrote it down there, just like it

was, and I put down the pencil,and turned over the piece of paper, and

there there on the other side. In the middle of the other side.

Away from everything else on the other side. In parentheses.

Capital letters. Quotated. Read the following words:

I went over to the the seargent, said "Seargent, you got a lot a damn'

gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean I'm just

sittin' here, sittin' on the Group W bench cause you want to know

if I'm moral enough join the army to burn women, kids, houses, and

villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me said "Kid,we don't

like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to

Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little

folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the

only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know

somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar

situation,and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing

you can do and that's: walk into the shrink whereever you are, just

walk in, say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's

restaurant." And walk out. You know,if one person, just one person

does it they may think he's really sick and won't take him. And if

two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both

faggots and they won't take either of them. And if three people, three,

can you imagine, three people walking in, singin' a bar of Alice's

Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And

can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking

in, singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends,

they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement,

and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around

on the guitar. With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the

guitar, here, and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.

I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it

for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud ... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part

harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

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