Alice's Restaurant Massacree

This song is called Alice's Restaurant It's about Alice And a 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 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 And 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, and 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's 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 is better than two little piles And rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours 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 45 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 that he coulda give 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 coulda 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 wanna tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts 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 smellin' prints And they took 27 eight-by-ten color 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 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 27 eight-by-ten color 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 eight-by-ten color 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 27 eight-by-ten color 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 27 eight-by-ten color glossy pictures With the 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 27 eight-by-ten color 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 dollars And had to pick up the garbage in the snow But, that's not what I came to tell you about Came to talk about the draft They got a buildin' 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 mornin' '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 kindsa mean, nasty, ugly things And I walked in and sat down And they gave me a piece of paper Said, "Kid see the psychiatrist, room 604" And, and I went up there, I said "Shrink I wanna 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 jumpin' 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 on down the hall Getting' 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 I When I finally came to the see the very 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 Alice's Restaurant Massacre With full orchestration and five-part harmony And stuff like that and all the phenome... "Stop it right there" And said "Kid, did you ever go to court?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of The 27 eight-by-ten color glossy pictures With the circles and arrows And a paragraph on the back of each one And, "Stop it right there", and said "Kid I want you to go over 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, there is Group W's where they Where they put you If you may not be moral enough to To join the army After committing your special crime, and There was all kinds of mean nasty, ugly lookin' people On the bench there Mother rapers Father stabbers Father rapers! Father rapers Sittin' right there on the bench next to me! And, one- They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible Crime-type guys just 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 '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 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 And the hairy eyeball, and all kinds of mean nasty things 'Til I said, "And creatin' 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 sergeant 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-any-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-gotta-say" And he talked for 45 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, 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 a damn gall To ask me if I've rehabilitated myself I mean I mean I mean, I'm just, I'm sitting here on the bench I mean, I'm sitting here on the Group W bench 'Cause you wanna 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 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 you're in a situation like that There's only one thing you can do Is walk in to 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 if 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 50 people a day I said 50 people a day Walking in, singin' 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-Massacre Movement And all you got to do to join Is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar With feelin' So, we'll wait 'til it comes 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 gotta sing loud I could put a lot... I been singing this song now for 25 minutes I could sing it for another 25 minutes I'm not proud Or tired So we'll wait 'til it comes around again and This time with four-part harmony and feelin' 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 I said walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Da da da da da da da dum At Alice's Restaurant