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Here it is the complete and unabridged text of the song.
This has been reproduced without permission from whoever
permission should be got from. No guraantees about typos
or any thing like that.
Maurice (sore fingers) McMullin.
Galway.
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Spoken:
This song is called "Alice's Restaurant." 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 call the song
"Alice's Restaurant."
Sung:
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.
Spoken:
Now it all started two Thaknsgivings ago - 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 a church
nearby the restaurant in the bell tower with her husband Ray and
Facha 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 and found all the garbage in there and we decided
that 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 this big sign and a chain across the
dump sayin', "THIS DUMP IS CLOSED ON THANKSGIVING," and we'd never
heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in
our eyes, we drove off into the sunset lookin' for another place to
put the garbage.
We didn't find one till we came to a side road, and off the side of
the 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
was better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up,
we decided to throw ours down. That's what we did.
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 form Officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your
name on an envelope at the bottom of a half ton of garbage and I
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 speakin' to Obie for about forty
five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the
matter and he 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 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
station.
Now, friends, there was only one of two things that Obie could've
done at the police officer station, and the first was that he
could've give us a medal for bein' 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 could've bawled us out and told us
never to be seen drivin' garbage around in the vicinity again,
which is what we expected.
But when we got to the police officer 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 cant pick
up the garbage with these handcuffs on."
He said : "Shut up, Kid and 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 'bout the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where
this is happenin'. 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.
FIVE police officers and THREE police cars, bein' the biggest crime
of the last fifty years and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper
story about it.
And they was usin' all sorts of cop equipment that they had hangin'
around the police officer station. They was takin' plaster tyre
tracks, footprints, dog-smellin' prints and they too twenty seven
8 by 10 coloured glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a
paragraph on the back of each one explainin' 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 gonna
put us in a cell. He said "Kid , I'm gonna put you in a cell. I want
your wallet and your belt".
I said "Obie, I can understand your wantin' 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 hangin's."
I said "Obie, Did you think I was goin' to hang myself for litterin'?"
Obie said he was makin' 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 the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have
and escape. Obie was makin' sure.
It was about four or five hours later that Alice -- (remember Alice?
there'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 mornin', when we all had to go to
court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven
8 by 10 coloured 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 8 by 10 coloured glossy pictures, and the judge
walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and he sat down. We sat down.
Obie looked at the seein' eye dog -- then at the twenty seven 8 by 10
coloured glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph
on the back of each one -- and looked at the seein' eye dog -- then
at the twenty seven 8 by 10 coloured glossy pictures with the circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry.
Because Obie came to the realisation that it was a typical case of
American blind justice, and there was nothin' he could do about it,
and the Judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty seven 8 by 10 coloured
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 fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage -- in
the snow. But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here
to talk about the draft.
They got a buildin' down in New York City 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,
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. 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 of mean, nasty, ugly things.
And I walked in, sat down, 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 wanna kill!, I wanna
see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt
bodies! I mean: 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 to good about it.
Proceeded down the hall, gettin' more injections, inspections,
detections, neglections and all kind 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 goin' through all kinds of mean, nasty,
ugly things, and I was just havin' a tough time there, and they was
inspectin', injectin' every part of me, and they was leavin' no part
untouched!
Proceeded through, and I finally came to the last man, I walked in,
sat down, after a whole big thing there. I walked up, and I said,
"What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question :
have you ever been arrested?"
So I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacre
with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that,
and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, "Kid, have you ever been to court?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven 8 by 10
coloured glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph
on the back of each one --
He stopped me 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 walked over to the bench there, and there's -- Group W is where
they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committin' your special crime.
There was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people on the bench
there - there was mother-rapers, father-stabbers, father-rapers!
Father-rapers sittin' right there on the bench next to me.
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin'
guys were sittin' there on the bench, and the meanest, ugliest,
nastiest one - the meanest father-raper of them all - was comin'
over to me.
And he was mean and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things, and
he sat down next to me. He said "Kid, What'd you get?"
I said, "I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars and pick
up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, Kid?" and I
said , "Litterin'."
And the all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy
eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till 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-stabbin',father-rapin', -- all kinds
of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench and everything
was fine.
We was smokin' cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sergeant
came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said:
'KIDTHISPIECEOFPAPERSGOTFORTYSEVENWORDSTHIRTYSEVENSENTENCESFIFTY
EIGHTWORDWEWANTTOKNOWTHEDETAILSOFTHECRIMETIMETIMEOFTHECRIMEANDANY
OTHERKINDOFTHINGYOUGOTTOSAYPERTAININGTOANDABOUTTHECRIMEWEWANTTO
KNOWTHEARRESTINGOFFICERSNAMEANDANYOTHERTHINGYOUGOTTOSAY--'
He talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that
he said. But we had fun fillin' out the forms and playin' with the
pencils on the bench there. I filled out the massacres with the
four-part harmony.
Wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine. And I
put down my 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
-- quoted -- read the following words:
"Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself ?"
I went over to the sergeant. I said "Sergeant, you got a lot of
God-damned gall to ask me if I have rehabilitated myself! I mean,
I mean , I mean that you send -- 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 to 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! We're gonna
send your fingerprints off to Washington." and friends, somewhere in
Washington, enshrined in some folder, is a study in black and white
of my fingerprints.
And the only reason I'm singin' you the song 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:
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 do it -- in harmony -- they may think the're both
faggots and the won't take either of them. And if three people do it!
Can you imagine three people walkin' in, singin' a bar of "Alice's
Restaurant" and walkin' out? They might think it's an organisation!
And can you imagine fifty people a day? I said fifty people a day --
walkin' in, singin' a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walkin' out?
Friends, they may think its a MOVEMENT, and that's what it is:
THE ALICE'S RESTAURANT ANTI-MASSACREE MOVEMENT!
and all you gotta do to join is to sing it the next time it comes
around on the guitar. With Feelin':
Sung:
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.
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