56 years on the Group W bench
Published July 10, 2003
Arlo Guthrie was born July 10, 1947. Happy #56. Woo-hoo!
Surely "Alice's Restaurant" was the greatest anti-war protest song of the Vietnam era.
"Shrink, I want to 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 jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."
Arlo made a pretty interesting movie based on the song which took the story in whole different non-political directions. Note that the infamous Officer Obie played himself in the movie. HERE is a nice tribute to an officer with some sense of humor, from Arlo's official website.
- 56 years on the Group W bench
- Published: July 10, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Country and Americana, Music: Folk, Video: Drama
- Writer: Al Barger
- Al Barger's BC Writer page
- Al Barger's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Arlo's greatest hits demonstrate he has been a lot more than just "Alice." I have lost interest over the years, but his voice, humor, songwriting and way with a cover tune put him up there in the neighborhood of James Taylor, though a bit more firmly folky.
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Despite my decidedly non-hippie politics and personality, I love "Alice's Restaurant." Every year on Thanksgiving KQRS in Minneapolis plays it in its entirety, and I'm sure never to miss it; last year I sat by the radio literally all day long.