A note about something I’ve long been aware of but never listened to, the song “Alice’s Restaurant”, by Arlo Guthrie. Now realizing how close we live to Stockbridge, MA – just over an hour away, I’m a little disappointed on the timing of my discovery this morning, as I sip coffee quietly to a cold wet November morning, oddly welcomed after a long dry spell.
Just finished listening to the 19-minute song told in what I can only reference as an Allan Shermanesque style of storytelling. You know “Hello Mudda Hello Fadda”… OMG, if you don’t, please find it and enjoy a very relevant and funny part of our past – a real innocent time for many people.
I loved every minute of listening to Alice’s Restaurant, realizing many people still make it a tradition to listen to it for Thanksgiving. It is a song recorded live, which only adds to it all.
But as I’m listening it takes this very odd turn, which is clearly deliberate, to just be outrageously descriptive about a moment in jail. He starts talking about being in jail and sitting next to “mother rapers and father rapers” and says the word “rape” a bunch of times. It occurred to me that across social media comments, people share this song with their family every year at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Later in the song he employs the word “faggots”, as a derogatory expression that the audience laughs at. Folks, it just was the times… We’ve come a long way and maybe you had to live through the times to understand the “innocence” of what we now know to just be cruel words and ignorance. If all you can do is dwell on this, you’ve completely missed the forest, so to speak.
Incredibly grateful that I’ve finally discovered the story of Alice’s Restaurant, the song, the trash, the arrests, court appearances, and Alice. It’s really a complete story about maintaining friendships and loyalty at a time of year where we are supposed to reflect on what we are thankful for.
And deliberately like the song, this post is almost not about Alice Brock. The restaurant closed decades ago. But Arlo’s story and her name is once again lifted into the public conscious as we approach Thanksgiving. She passed away yesterday, and it seems completely appropriate to share this with you and encourage you to take the time to read the backstory and listen to the song “Alice’s Restaurant”. It is truly a piece of Americana that needs to be preserved exactly as it was, flawed and all. At its core, there is also a song representing a humble rebellion against overreach. The fact that this song still carries on is probably, in part, a testament to it.
The style in which the story is told is a songwriting genre we don’t see much anymore. Arlo Guthrie, in his own way, managed a similar style to Johnny Cash – just telling a story to the notes of a simple tune and a catchy chorus. While Johnny Cash defined his style with a no-nonsense way of telling his stories, Arlo manages to humorously drag the story out, which is a deliberate part of the experience and humor of a 19-minute song.
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
https://theberkshireedge.com/alice-brock-of-alices-restaurant-dies
God Bless the memory of Alice Brock and may we all, in our own ways, have a blessed Thanksgiving.