- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- At around 18 minutes in length, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” might be the longest best-known song of any individual rock musician in history.
Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant (1967): As the son of Woody Guthrie, the iconic troubadour of the Depression era, Arlo Guthrie perhaps put off releasing his first album longer than usual until he could deliver the goods. And does he ever: At around 18 minutes in length, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, which covers all of Side 1, might be the longest best-known song of any individual rock musician in history. At its core, it is an anti-war, anti-draft song; but for the most part, it is fun all the way, with inventive storytelling and sparkling wordplay. It seems that Arlo Guthrie was arrested once for littering and was later found to be unfit for military service because of his “criminal background”.
The story takes place in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, about as lovely a town as you will ever see. Their downtown district has been preserved in perpetuity since it was the subject of a major painting by the world famous yet still under-rated artist who grew up there, Norman Rockwell. Remarkably, Arlo Guthrie starred as himself in a movie called Alice’s Restaurant (1969) that brought the song to life better than anyone could have expected. It was directed by Arthur Penn, whose other films include Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man. Stockbridge police chief William Obanhein (“Officer Obie”) appears as himself, as does the blind judge, James Hannon. Pete Seeger and his bandmate in the Weavers, Lee Hays are also in the film. Alice Brock has a cameo in the movie; as the song says, the name of her restaurant was never “Alice’s Restaurant” – originally it was called the Back Room. The scene where Arlo Guthrie is making his “I wanna kill” speech to the Army shrink alone makes the film worth seeing. As is true of the album with another indelible side-long 1960’s song, In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) by Iron Butterfly, the songs on Side 2 of Alice’s Restaurant don’t get much attention; but there is some excellent music there. I heard Arlo Guthrie perform “The Motorcycle Song” twice on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and it is a real hoot. Who would think of rhyming “pickle” with “motor-sickle”? Other standout songs include “Chilling of the Evening”, “Ring-Around-a-Rosy Rag”, and “I’m Going Home”.