I, the OP formerly known as NotherYinzer, watched my favorite version of the video with my husband last night. We’re going to be away from the radio tomorrow so we won’t have a chance to hear it “live."
I, the other OP, still with the same username, listened to it twice this week already and will be listening at noon on the local radio station before diving into football and another year of Truckstop Turkey with the family. What was once a humorous anecdote has become something we do every year when the rest of the family goes away.
LIstening right now… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
It’s a Thanksgiving tradition that can’t be beat.
I’ve always been a fan of the song, but about ten years ago I decided I didn’t need to listen to it anymore. It’s not so much like listening to a favorite song over and over; it’s more like hearing the same story over and over.
It was never a Thanksgiving tradition for me, but it reminds me of our Senior Ditch Day. A bunch of friends and I went to the beach, then someone wanted to play mini golf. One of the guys had brought his guitar and began singing Alice’s Restaurant when we left Marina del Rey, and he finished as we were pulling into the parking lot at the mini golf on La Brea (now looooong gone).
Join in when it comes around again.
Just listened to it!
I followed “Alice’s Restaurant” with Donovan’s “Intergalactic Laxative”, just for fun.
I’ll take songs I didn’t know exsisted for 200$, Alex.
Took some finangling to find the non-cropped version, but just listened to it … again. Yes, it’s been a tradition for me since I was in my teens, and I’m in my mid-40s now. I know every word, and I’m rather notorious for my crap memory.
“.. excepting Alice” has gotta be one of the best quiet jokes ever worked into a song.
I’m sure Ms Brock appreciated that.
Ditto.
I play (The LP) every single year after breakfast when I build my relish tray! love the song and Arlo’s sentiment:..:”If ya wanna end war and stuff ya gotta sing loud!”
Today (Thursday) as we were driving to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner we passed a dump with a CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC sign out front. My husband and I had to laugh.
So Truckstop Turkey turned out to be a dud this year. They were not terribly busy, we went early, sat ourselves as we were supposed to, waited 10 minutes to get our drink order from a surly older lady who was clearly exhausted (which she messed up). Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. 25 minutes later, after they had ignored us multiple times and took orders from two different parties that came well after us, I threw a fiver on the table to cover the drinks and we walked out.
We went down the road to a diner, got wonderful service and good food, and the server got the fat tip that the servers at the other place clearly didn’t want.
So that tradition died tonight in apathy. But I still listened to Arlo at noon, and we introduced his girlfriend to Alice’s Restaurant and she enjoyed it so it wasn’t a total bust.
The first time I heard Alice’s Restaurant, it was 1999 and I was 16. My then 14-year-old sister and I were home alone. Our mom was over at her boyfriend’s house cooking Thanksgiving dinner with him, and we were gonna walk over a little later to join them when it was time to eat. There was nothing good on TV, so we had the radio on. We would argue over which station to have on, because I liked to listen to the classic rock station and she preferred to have the alternative station on, but that day the classic rock station won out, and at noon they started playing the massacree with full orchestration and five-part harmony.
I thought it sounded lame at first and changed the channel to the other classic rock station, but the song they were playing was even lamer so I changed the channel back just in time to hear about the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, so we listened in and wound up thinking it was pretty funny. When we made it over later for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, I mentioned to mom that there’d been this weird song on the radio where a guy talked about the draft for 20 minutes and she was like “Oh yeah, Alice’s Restaurant! I love that song!”, which left me feeling confused and bewildered about what the older generation was into.
This year, I’m 1200 miles away from there, but mom is here too about a mile away. Usually on Thanksgiving I go over to her apartment and cook, but this year her radiator is stuck on and her kitchen is uncomfortably hot, so we went out to a local seafood restaurant to eat instead. Dinner was clam chowder to start, followed by a main course of turkey (mom opted for ham instead), mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce, and cheesecake with caramel sauce for dessert. The bus doesn’t run on Thanksgiving here, so I walked down to her apartment to meet her and listened to the massacree on my headphones as I was on the way. She says she’s tired of the song at this point, but I still enjoy it.
Happy Thanksgiving, kid.
I guess the tradition isn’t as strong with me anymore. We hosted Thanksgiving and I didn’t even have think of listening to it this year.
I listened 3 times yesterday.
I drink.
OMG, that’s thirty years after my aforementioned Senior Ditch Day.