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