Thanksgiving Traditions

Talking with some of the millennials in my office, I realized that none of them had ever heard, or heard of, Alice's Restaurant.

For the uninitiated, Alice's Restaurant is the name of an 18-minute talking blues song recorded by Arlo Guthrie (Woody's son) in 1967.  The song tells the comic tale of events on a Thanksgiving Day in the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts and the unexpected results of the events of that day.

It was a pretty big hit when it was released and Arthur Penn even made it into a movie.  Despite its length, it got a lot of airplay on FM radio and throughout the 1970s, Alice's Restaurant was a consistent staple of their Thanksgiving Day programming.  I stopped listening to commercial radio by the mid-80s, but could only assume that Alice's Restaurant was still being played every Thanksgiving Day, at least on classic rock stations.

And it might very well be since, like yours truly, millennials by and large don't listen to classic rock radio (or radio at all). But since practically no one remembers the song anymore and since after over 10 years of posting William S. Burroughs' cynical Thanksgiving Prayer every Turkey Day, I'm in the market for a new tradition, here's Alice's Restaurant Massacree (the full title that nobody uses) as performed by Arlo Guthrie in 1967.

Enjoy!