Alice's Restaurant- Arlo Guthrie (1967)

Rating-- 7/10

There aren't too many Thanksgiving songs that I can think of. Or any, for that matter. This is one of the few, it seems-- an almost-twenty-minute-long monologue telling the story of a boy in the late 1960s (it is autobiographical and based on an event that happened to Arlo Guthrie, the singer, and a son of Woody Guthrie) who goes to jail for throwing garbage over a cliff (in Massachusetts!) , and eventually gets found out (because of a letter with his name on it), has to deal with the police, and then tries to avoid the draft by singing "You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice's Restaurant". By the end, the whole live audience crowd is singing along to avoid the draft, and the Vietnam War, and pretty soon I'm thinking about how many more years it lasted. Also, the song takes place around Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie has several Thanksgiving dinners at Alice's Restaurant.

It was a very unusual song-- eighteen minutes of guitar backing Guthrie's vocals, but mostly his speaking voice as he told a story. There was some comedy involved, which was interesting. A bunch of funny parts, and certain parts that wouldn't fly nowadays-- for example, the way Arlo and his friends tried to avoid the draft. Singing in harmony... hmm.

I think I liked it. It was "historically significant", for sure, and I liked the story behind it-- interesting enough to hold my attention the whole time. It also reminded me a lot of when I try to talk for an extended period of time without stopping and just make stuff up as I go along, which is what this sounded like, only not as messy. 

So, yes. It's a pretty good song. Is it a song? I don't know. 

Today's "Music Was So Much Better Back Then" comment-- 

Well, everyone is talking about Thanksgiving and taking drugs in the 70s and how relevant it is to modern times. Modern music isn't even brought up, to my relief.