alice's restaurant - original 1967 recording

It's never occurred to most of us here in the UK how much of a Thanksgiving Day tradition Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant' has been for a whole generation in the States.
And sure, it's not exactly going to be top of the list of listening for most kids these days given the original recording is 14+ minutes long. Who has the time to listen these days, right? And anyway who today relates to the songs main subject, being faced with conscription?
By 1967 it was a very real prospect for thousands of young people across the country as news coverage of Vietnam became a daily intrusion.
Today only the archive newsreels recalls the horror.. the horror. Some fled it. Some ducked it. Some were lucky. Some never came home. And many protested.
The gathering momentum of young and by then older voices in protest eventually mattered. It wasn't just them that that brought the end, it never is but they were active voices that did matter. The attitude, the songs, the fight for their freedom were all wrapped up in something undefinable but unanimous. The end of the war. Peace and freedom.
Few spoken records capture that young voice and social climate of 1967 better than Guthrie's rambling tale of Thanksgiving and conscription.
It might seem there's not a whole lot of reasons to be thankful these days but not having conscription is most certainly one of them.
Here's the original 60's recording from the album of the same name.

arlo and the narcs

If Alro Guthrie ever had anyone to thank for his success, apart from the fans who bought his music, it would have to be the "narcs". He's spent a whole career telling funny stories and singing songs about his dealings with them, but as he says here "I'm good now" so obviously no further problems with the Officer's.
If anyone represented the freewheelin' hippy of the 60's it had to be Arlo. His classic song/narration of "Alice's Restaurent" was born out of a shared belief with a million kids held in the grip of the all too real possibility that at any time they could be sent to fight in Vietnam.
And if anyone views the American 60's heady idealism with a snear of ridicule and cynicism they should imagine themselves in a similar position.. the very real possibilty of army conscription. So when a million teenagers take their views and respond in all the visible and imagined ways for freedom from the establishment then the 60's hippy is not just born out of a trend, rather more, it could just have been your last party, and for many it was.

Quite how Arlo made it through the years to be still singing his songs and telling his stories completely unscathed by it all is no small miracle in itself. Maybe he was just one of the lucky ones. Whatever it was, the decades have passed and he's never sort out the spotlight or often appeared in the press. He's what you might call a tradtional troubadour.
And happiest in front if his audience. They still pack out to see him.
This is one of his funny rambling stories in which he thanks the narc's and then leads the band into "Coming into Los Angeles". A timeless tune and some sharp lead playing by his band. One such, is his son Abe playing the keytar (you'll get it when you see it) who plays it just like it has 6 strings. The film is probably taken around the late 80's.