Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant Lyrics:
This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and 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
called the song Alice's Restaurant.

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

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, 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 Fasha the
dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they
got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used
to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they
took out all the pews, they decided that they
didn't have to take out their garbage for a long
time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in
there, and we decided 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 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. Until we came to a side road,
and off the side of the side road there was
another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of
the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And
we decided that one big pile is better than two
little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw our's down.

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 an
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."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-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's
station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction
and headed on toward the police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that
Obie coulda done at the police station, and the
first was he could have 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 he could have 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 officer's 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 tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened
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 officer's
station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot
prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty
seven eight-by-ten colour 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 the
southwest corner and that's not to mention the
aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie
said he was going to put us in the cell. Said,
"Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I
want your wallet and your belt." And I said,
"Obie, I can understand you 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 going to
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 the -
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),
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 a 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 eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures
with 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 twenty seven eight-by-ten colour
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 eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph
on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing
eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and
a paragraph on the back of each one and began to
cry, 'cause 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 the
judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven
eight-by-ten colour 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 $50 and
had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats
not what I came to tell you about.
[ Find more Lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.org/cs4 ]

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it's
called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you
get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected. I went down to get 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. `Cause I wanted to look like the
all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted,
I wanted to feel like the all-, 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 o' mean nasty ugly things. And I
waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of
paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist,
room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want
to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I
wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies.
I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started
jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL,
KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with
me and we was both jumping up and down yelling,
"KILL, KILL." And the sargent 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 on down the hall gettin more injections,
inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds
of stuff that they was doin' 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 when I finally came to the see the
last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a
whole big thing there, and I walked up and 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 the
Alice's Restaurant Massacre, with full
orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like
that and all the phenome... - and 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 eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on
the back of each one, and he stopped me right
there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and
sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW
kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there,
and there is, Group W's where they put you if you
may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all
kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the
bench there. 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 crime-type guys
sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest,
ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of
them all, was coming over to me and he was mean
'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of
things and he sat down next to me and said,
"Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I
didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up
the garbage." He said, "What were you
arrested for, kid?" And I said,
"Littering." And they all moved away
from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball
and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said,
"And creating a nuisance." And they all
came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time
on the bench, talkin 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 Sargeant came over, had some
paper in his hand, held it up and said.

"Kids,
this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58
-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-an
y-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-
want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-got
ta-say", and 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
massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was
fine and I put down the 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 sargent, said, "Sargeant,
you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've
rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that
just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm
sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want
to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn
women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a
litterbug." He looked at me and said,
"Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're
gonna send you 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 this song now is cause you may know
somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in
a similar situation, and if your in a situation
like that there's only one thing you can do and
that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just
walk in say "Shrink, 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 may think they're both faggots and
they won't take either of them. And three people
do it, three, can you imagine, three people
walking in singin 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 singin a bar of
Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends
they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant
Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to
join is sing it the next time it come's around on
the guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around
on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here
it comes.

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

That was horrible. If you want to end war and
stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this
song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud...
or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this
time with four part harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what
we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's
Restaurant Excepting Alice 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

Da da da da da da da dum At Alice's Restaurant
Lyrics: Alice's Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie [end]