Alice's Restaurant
| "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Arlo Guthrie from the album Alice's Restaurant | |
| Released | October 1967 |
| Recorded | 1967 |
| Genre | Talking blues, folk music |
| Length | 18:34 |
| Label | Warner Bros. |
| Writer(s) | Arlo Guthrie |
| Producer(s) | Fred Hellerman |
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a record by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, released as the title track to his 1967 debut album Alice's Restaurant. It is notable as a satirical, first-person account of 1960s counterculture, in addition to being a hit song in its own right and an inspiration for the 1969 film, also named Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident from his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965 with a citation for littering, and ended with the refusal of the U.S. Army to draft him because of his conviction for that crime. The ironic punch line of the story is that, in the words of Guthrie, "I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the Army—burn women, kids, houses and villages—after bein' a litterbug." The final part of the song is an encouragement for the listeners to sing along, to resist the draft, and to end war.
The song consists of a protracted spoken monologue, with a constantly repeated fingerstyle ragtime guitar (Piedmont style) guitar backing, bookended by a short chorus about the titular diner; Guthrie has used the short "Alice's Restaurant" bookends and guitar backings for other monologues bearing the Alice's Restaurant name. The track lasts 18 minutes and 34 seconds, occupying the entire A-side of the Alice's Restaurant album. The work has become Guthrie's signature song and he has periodically re-released it with updated lyrics.
"Alice's Restaurant" is a satirical, deadpan protest against the Vietnam War draft, in the form of a comically exaggerated but true story from Guthrie's own life. It has been described by at least one source as a shaggy dog story.
The term "," used by Guthrie in the title to describe the whole scenario, is a colloquialism originating in the Ozark Mountains that describes "an event so wildly and improbably and baroquely messed up that the results are almost impossible to believe." It is a corruption of the word (itself of French origin, possibly from the now nearly extinct Missouri French dialect) but carries a much lighter and more sarcastic connotation, never being used to describe anything involving actual death.
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