Holy Trinity High School Class of `73

1969-1973

"Song of the Day"

August 19, 2024

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree", commonly known as "Alice's Restaurant",
is a satirical talking blues song by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie,
originally released in 1967 as the title track to his debut album.
The song inspired the 1969 film Alice's Restaurant, which starred
Guthrie and took numerous liberties with the story.

Alice's Restaurant is a 1969 American comedy film directed by Arthur Penn.
It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree",
originally written and sung by Arlo Guthrie. The film stars Guthrie as
himself, with Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick as Ray Brock.
Penn, who resided in the story's setting of Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
co-wrote the screenplay in 1967 with Venable Herndon after hearing the
song. Alice's Restaurant premiered in Boston on August 19, 1969, a few
days after Guthrie appeared at the Woodstock Festival. A soundtrack
album for the film was also released by United Artists Records. The
soundtrack includes a re-recorded studio version of the title song.

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Alice's Restaurant Massacree, Part 1 - Arlo Guthrie (1969)

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
And that's why we call this song Alice's Restaurant.

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
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

It all started about four Thanksgivings ago
About four years ago on Thanksgiving
When my friend and I went up to see Alice
And her husband Ray, and Fasha the dog
Alice doesn't live in the restaurant though
She lives in the church nearby the restaurant in the bell tower

Livin' in the bell tower like that
They got a lot of room downstairs
Where the pews used to be
Seein' as how they took out all of the pews
Havin' all that room down there,
They decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage
For a extra special long time

Havin' all that garbage in there
We decided that it would be a friendly gesture
For us to take the garbage down to the town dump
So we took the half a ton of garbage
Put it in the back of a red VW microbus
Took shovels and rakes, and implements of destruction
And headed on toward the town dump

Well we got there
And there's a big sign, and a chain across the road
Saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving"
And we had never heard of a dump
Closed on Thanksgiving before
So with tears in our eyes
We drove off down the road
Looking for another place to put the garbage

We didn't find one
'Til we came to a side road
And off the side of the side road
Was a fifteen-foot cliff
And at the bottom of the cliff was another pile of garbage
And we decided that one big pile was better than two little piles
And rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down
That's what we did

Went back to the church
Had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
Went to sleep and didn't get up until the next day
When we got a phone call from officer Obie
He 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 about it?"
And I said, "Yes sir, Officer Obie
I cannot tell a lie
I put that envelope under that garbage"

After speaking to Obie for about 45 minutes on the telephone
We finally arrived at the truth of the matter, and Obie said
We had to go down and pick up the garbage
But first we had to go down and see him at the
Police officer's station

So we got back in the red VW microbus
With the shovels and rakes, and implements of destruction
And headed on toward the police officer's station
Now friends,
There was only one or two things that Obie coulda done
And the first was that he coulda give us a medal
For being so brave and honest on the telephone
Which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect that anyway
And the other possibility was that he coulda bawled us out
And told us never to be seen driving garbage around 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 even counted upon
And we was both immediately arrested
Handcuffed

I said, "Obie we can't pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on"
He said, "Kid, Shut up
Get in the back of the patrol car"
And we sat in the back of the patrol car
And drove to the quote, scene of the crime, unquote

Now friends,
I wanna tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Where this was happening
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
That they had hanging around the police officer's station
They was using plaster tire tracks, foot prints
Finger prints, Dog smellin' prints
And they took 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photographs
With circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one
Explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us

Took pictures 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 church
And had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
Went to sleep and didn't get up until the next day
When we had to go to court
We walked in, sat down
Obie came in, sat down
Man came in, said, "All rise"
We all stood up
Obie stood up
The judge walked in
Sat down with a seeing-eye dog
The dog sat down, we sat down

Obie looked at the 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photographs
With the circles and arrows
And a paragraph on the back of each one
Explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us
Then looked at the seeing-eye dog, then looked at the judge
Then looked at the 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photographs
With the circles and paragraphs and began to cry

Obie came to the realization
That it was a typical case of American blind justice
And there wasn't nothing he could do about it
And we had to pay 50 dollars
And pick up the garbage


Songwriters: Arlo Guthrie

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