Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie

Alice’s Restaurant is my favorite Thanksgiving song, particularly when there is a war going on. So it’s been a particular favorite during much of the past twenty years.

It’s great even without a war.

Off the side of the side road was another 15 foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff was another pile of garbage. 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. That’s what we did.

Arlo isn’t just being funny. He is describing the whole genre of self-help. Why clean up, when you can toss your garbage over a cliff, clap dirt of you hands and drive on? That’s self-help!

They gave me a piece of paper that said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

I went up there. I said, “Shrink. I wanna kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna 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 jumping up and down, yelling, “Kill. 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 metal on me. Sent me down the hall and said, “You’re our boy.”

Thanksgiving is a day we pause from our one-person journey and celebrate the people in our life. Together, like Arlo and his audience, we sing, with feeling,

“You can get everything you want at Alice’s Restaurant...”

No doubt we can. With friends. If we take care of the garbage.