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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You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant | |
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant | |
Walk right in it's around the back | |
Just a half a mile from the railroad track | |
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant | |
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 | |
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. | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant. | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant. | |
Walk right in it's around the back, | |
Just a half a mile from the railroad track, | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant. | |
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 | |
We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing. | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant - "Excepting Alice" | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant | |
Walk right in it's around the back, | |
Just a half a mile from the railroad track, | |
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant | |
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| - | - | | At | Alice's Restau | rant! | - | - | |
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