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 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 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'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 see 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, 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 smelling prints, and they took twenty
seven 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 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 color 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 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 twenty seven eight-by-ten color 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 color 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
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 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 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 walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of
paper, said, 'Kid, see the psychiatrist, 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 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 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 color 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 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 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, 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, said, 'Sergeant, 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 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 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
©1966, 1967 (Renewed) by Appleseed Music Inc.
