The Illustrated Model of “Alice’s Restaurant”: Watch Arlo Guthrie’s Thanksgiving Counterculture Traditional

Alice’s Restaurant. It’s now a Thanksgiving basic, and one thing of a convention round right here. Recorded in 1967, the 18+ minute counterculture tune recounts Arlo Guthrie’s actual encounter with the legislation, beginning on Thanksgiving Day 1965. Because the lengthy tune unfolds, we hear all about how a hippie-bating police officer, by the title of William “Obie” Obanhein, arrested Arlo for littering. (Cultural footnote: Obie beforehand posed for a number of Norman Rockwell work, together with the well-known portray, “The Runaway,” that graced a 1958 cowl of The Saturday Night Put up.) In pretty brief order, Arlo pleads responsible to a misdemeanor cost, pays a $25 nice, and cleans up the thrash. However the story isn’t over. Not by an extended shot. Later, when Arlo (son of Woody Guthrie) will get known as up for the draft, the petty crime sarcastically turns into a foundation for disqualifying him from navy service within the Vietnam Battle. Guthrie recounts this with some bitterness because the tune builds right into a satirical protest in opposition to the conflict: “I’m sittin’ right here on the Group W bench ’trigger you need to know if I’m ethical sufficient to hitch the Military, burn girls, youngsters, homes and villages after bein’ a litterbug.” After which we’re again to the cheery refrain once more: “You will get something you need, at Alice’s Restaurant.”

We have now featured Guthrie’s basic throughout previous years. However, for this Thanksgiving, we provide the illustrated model. Pleased Thanksgiving to everybody who plans to rejoice the vacation at the moment.

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