(Guitar melody) x1
(Guitar melody) x2
(Guitar melody) x3
(Guitar melody) x4 (Guitar continues throughout song/story)
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 I call the song Alice's Restaurant. (Laughter)
(Guitar playing)
You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant. x1 (Sings)
You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant. x2 (Sings)
Walk right in, it's around the back, (Sings)
just a half a mile from the railroad track. (Sings)
You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant. (Sings)
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago.
It was on, two years ago, on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I
went up to visit Alice at the restaurant. But Alice doesn't live in the restaurant,
she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell tower,
with her husband Ray and Facha, the dog.
And living in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be, and,
having all that room, seeing as how they took out all the pews,
they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage
for a long time. (Laughter)
We got up there, we found all the garbage in there and we decided that it'd be a friendly gesture
for us to take the garbage down to the city 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 city dump.
Well, we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across the dump saying, closed on Thanksgiving,
and we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before,
and with tears in our eyes, we drove off into the sunset 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 another 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. (Laughter)
That's what we did, and, drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,
went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from Officer Obie.
He said, kid,
we found your name on a 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. (Laughter)
After speaking to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter
and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him
at the police officer station. So we got in the red VW microbus
with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, headed on toward the police officers station.
Now, friends, there was only one of two things that Obie could've done at the police station,
and the first was that he could've given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone
which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was that he could've 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 officers station,
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested,
handcuffed, and I said, Obie,
I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.
He said, shut up kid, get in the back of the patrol car.
And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car, and drove to the, quote, scene of the crime, unquote.
I want to tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this is happening here.
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 officers station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, footprints, dog-smelling prints
and they took twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored 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, and southwest corner.
And that's not to mention the aerial photography. (Laughter)
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was gonna put us in a cell.
Said, kid, I'm gonna put you in a cell. I want your wallet and your belt.
And I said, Obie, I can understand your wanting my wallet, so I don't have any money to spend in the cell,
but what do you want my belt for?
And he said, kid, we don't want any hangings.
I said, Obie, did you think I was gonna hang myself for littering?
Obie said he was making sure, and, friends, Obie was, 'cause he took out the toilet seat
so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend
the bars, roll out, roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape.
Obie was making sure and it was about four or five hours later that Alice, remember Alice?
It's a song about Alice. (Laughter)
Alice came by and, with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail,
and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,
and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down.
Obie came in with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.
Man came in, said, all rise.
We all stood up.
And Obie stood up with the 27 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures,
and the judge walked in, sat down with a seeing eye dog
and he sat down.
We sat down.
Obie looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one,
and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one
and began to cry because 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 that judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored glossy pictures 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.
And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but,
that's not what I came to tell you about. (Laughter)
I came to talk about the draft.
They got a building down in New York City called Whitehall Street, where you walk in,
you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected.
I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down
got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning,
because I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City.
I mean I wanted, I wanted to feel like, I wanted to be the all-American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.
And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper, said, kid, see the psychiatrist in room 604.
I went up there, I said, shrink,
I want to kill. (Laughter)
And I want, I want to kill.
Kill.
I want, I want to see,
I want to see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.
Eat dead, burnt bodies.
I mean, kill.
Kill.x1
Kill.x2
Kill.x3
And I started jumping up and down, yelling kill.
Kill.
And he started jumping up and down with me, and we was both jumping up and down, yelling, kill.
Kill.
And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, you're our boy.
Didn't feel too good about it.
Proceeded down the hall, getting more injections, inspections, detections, neglections,
and all kinds of stuff that they was doing to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours...
Three hours... Four hours...
I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things,
and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting, every single part of me,
and they was leaving no part untouched.
Proceeded through, and I, when I finally came to see the very last man.
I walked in.
I walked in, sat down, after a whole big thing there. And I walked up, and I said, what do you want?
He said, kid, we only got one question, have you ever been arrested?
And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant masacree with full orchestration and five-part harmony
and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, kid, did you ever go to court?
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one.
He stopped me right there and said, kid, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says, group W.
Now, kid!
(Guitar playing)
And I walked over to the bench there, and there's...
Group W is where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing
your special crime.
There was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-looking people on the bench there,
there was mother-rapers, father-stabbers, father-rapers.
Father-rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me.
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fighting guys was sitting there on the bench,
and the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father-raper of them all,
was coming over to me, and he was mean and ugly and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things,
and he sat down next to me and said, kid, what'd you get?
I said, I didn't get nothing. I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up the garbage.
He said, what were you arrested for, kid? And I said, litterin'.
And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things,
'til I said, and creating a nuisance.
And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench talking about crime, mother-stabbing,
father-raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench, and everything was fine.
We was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sergeant came over,
had some paper in his hand, held it up and said,
KIDSTHISPIECEOFPAPERSGOTFOURTYSVENPAGESTHIRTYSEVENSENTENCE FIFTYEIGHTWORDSWEWANTTOKNOWTHEDETAILSOFTHECRIMETHETIMEOFTHE
CRIMEANDANYOTHERKINDOFTHINGYOUGOTTOSAYPERTAININ'TOANDABOUT HECRIMEWEWANTTOKNOWTHEARRESTINGOFFICERSNAMEANDANYOTHERTHING
YOUGOTTOSAY.
And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said.
But we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and,
I filled out the masacree with the four-part harmony, and,
wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine.
And I put down my pencil,
and I turned over the piece of paper,
and there,
there on the other side,
in the middle of the other side,
away from everything else on the other side,
in parentheses,
capital letters,
quotated,
read the following words,
kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?
I went over to the sergeant and said, Sergeant, you got a lot of damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself.
I mean, I mean, I mean that you send, I'm sitting here on the bench,
I mean I'm sitting here on the group W bench, cuz you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the army,
burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.
He looked at me and said, kid, we don't like your kind and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington.
And, friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder,
is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.
And the only reason I'm singing you the song now is cuz you may know somebody in a similar situation.
Or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that, there's only one thing you can do.
Is just walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in, say, shrink,
(Sings) you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, and walk out.
You know, if one person, just one person, does it, they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they think they both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And if three people do it.
Three . . . can you imagine three people walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out?
They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day?
I said fifty people a day, walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out?
And friends, they may think it's a movement, and that's what it is,
the Alice's restaurant anti-massacree movement
and all you gotta do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.
With feeling.
So we'll wait until it come around on the guitar here.
Sing it when it does.
(Guitar playing)
Here it comes.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant. x1 (Audience sings along)
You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant. x2 (Audience sings along)
Walk right in, it's around the back. (Audience sings along)
Just a half a mile from the railroad track. (Audience sings along)
And you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant. (Audience sings along)
That was horrible. (Laughter)
You want to end war and stuff you gotta sing loud.
Could put a lot- I've been singing this song now for 25 minutes.
I could sing it for another 25 minutes.
I'm not proud. (Laughter)
Or tired.
So we'll wait till it comes around again and this time with four-part harmony and feeling.
We're just waiting for it to come around is what we're doing.
(Guitar)
All right now.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant. (Audience sings along)
Except'n Alice.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant. (Audience sings along)
I said, walk right in, it's around the back. (Audience sings along)
Just a half a mile from the railroad track. (Audience sings along)
And you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant. (Audience sings along)
At Alice's restaurant. (Applause)
(Applause)
Closed captioning by The Closed Captioning Project llc
and AccurateSecretarial.com