32. “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” was written by Arlo Guthrie. The full version runs 18 + minutes. Here’s the condensed version: Preface: The song is based on a true story of events that took place on Thanksgiving 1965 in Stockbridge, MA. It is also true that Arlo avoided being drafted because his arrest record determined him not worthy of the Army. Chapter 1: Thanksgiving day 1965; Alice owned a restaurant, but lived in a church; Half-a-ton of garbage; VW Microbus with implements of destruction; Dump closed; Cliff at the side of a side road; One big pile is better than two small piles; Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat; Next morning, Officer Obie; Twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin’ what each one was; Put in jail sans belt; Court; Twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored Glossy photographs etc.; Pay $25 fine for litterin’; Pick up trash; Back to Church for leftovers. Chapter 2: The draft; Get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected!; “Kill, Kill, Kill”!; “You’re our boy”; Last question: have you ever been arrested?; Twenty-seven 8×10, etc.; Group W bench with mother-rapers, father-stabbers, father-rapers; Talk about crime; “kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”; “kid, we don’t like your kind!”; Everyone sings “You can get anything to want at Alice’s restaurant” to stop the war.
