Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005 ALICE'S RESTAURANT, the Arlo Guthrie song, is the greatest shaggy dog story of all time. This is a kind of joke where the story goes on and on and on, seemingly leading to something cryptic and profound, but the long-awaited punch line turns out to be a bad pun, or three ants stranded in a toilet bowl singing a little song. Alice's Restaurant is a Thanksgiving favorite because, as the story goes, "It all started two Thanksgivings ago" when Arlo and a friend went to visit Alice, but she wasn't there. They decided to help her out by taking her trash to the 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." And so on, and on. I was amazed to see that its original copyright is 1966, somewhat before it was really understood how serious the Vietnam War was, and long before there was a widespread social movement against it. It is fair to say that this song was one of the early protest songs that helped raise awareness of the injustices involved; and the war did not end until 1973. I would like to assume most people know Alice's Restaurant, but as with most Sixties culture, it's either a misty recollection or something that many people have heard of but don't quite know of. And of course, it doesn't make it onto the mixing tables of DJs that often. Further, it helps if you hear the whole thing, not just four seconds of it; and there is no bass line to steal. For reference, any half-decent FM radio station in your community, if it has a shred of self-respect, will play the song today, so stay tuned. Now, if you haven't heard Alice's Restaurant, I won't give away the joke, unless you have the patience to read through all 2,641 words in the lyrics. But it does involve the irony that only moral, upright individuals can be drafted into the Army to go to a foreign country and kill innocent people. It's not only a song about the war, it's about a time when any young man (unless he had political connections) could have been drafted, at random, and sent to the jungles of Southeast Asia. Arlo was 18 at the time he wrote it -- of eminently draftable age. Such a time may be coming again soon, as Army recruitment drops to dangerous levels. Don't forget to leave your radio on, or give a call to the station and see if they plan to play it. Or check in with your friendly neighborhood hippie. No Thanksgiving is complete without it -- particularly this year. http://www.arlo.net/lyrics/alices.shtml Here is what someone claims is an original news clipping reprinted in the Arlo Guthrie Songbook, with the story of how the song was written. Super interesting, than you Goo. http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/alice.html