Today in Music (1969): Arlo Guthrie “Alice’s Restaurant” charted

Alice’s Restaurant Arlo Guthrie

Writer(s): Arlo Guthrie (see lyrics here) Released: October 1967 (album cut) First Charted: December 13, 1969 Peak: 97 BB, 12 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 14.9 video, 14.10 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Arlo Guthrie, the son of famous folk singer Woody Guthrie, grew up in New York but graduated from Stockbridge School in Massachussetts in June 1965. After spending just a few weeks at a liberal arts college in Billings, Montana, Guthrie returned to the east coast to try his hand at music. He attended a gathering of friends at Alice and Ray Brock’s Trinity Church on Thanksgiving Day in 1965. He and a friend volunteered to haul off some debris from the sanctuary and dumped the trash down a hillside embankment when they found the local dump closed. After getting arrested by Chief-of-Police William J. Obanhein (aka “Officer Obie,” the “semi-exaggerated authoritarian figure gently lampooned in the song” NRR) the two men paid a $50 fee and were sentenced to pick up the garbage. Arlo paired the incident with his experience with physical and mental examinations for potential military draft in the 18 ½ minute, mostly spoken-word, comic story of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” also known as “Alice’s Restaurant.” The “song” was anchored by the “tossed off, catchy, musical ‘advertisement’” NRR “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” He penned the line after learning of Alice’s plan to open The Back Room, a luncheonette in Stockbridge, NRR although it was never used to advertise the restaurant, which closed in the summer of 1966. NRR It all resulted in “one of the single funniest songs of its era.” DT The New York Times called it an “amusing but pointed spoken monologue on the vagaries of law enforcement, the selective service draft and their relation to the war in Vietnam.” NR The song “pricks a lot of hypocritical bubbles, not least of all the discovery that a convicted litterbug might not be considered moral enough to napalm women and children.” DT Resources: NRR National Recording Registry essay by Hank Reineke DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 154. Related Links: First posted 11/23/2025.