I first heard the song on the radio while doing a long overnight drive through Texas in spring of 1990. Ah, I was much younger and had more stamina then. When Arlo got to the part where he claims he’d been singing for 25 minutes, that snapped me out of my driving stupor, shocked me completely awake because I had no idea that much time had passed. (He’s exaggerating, btw. The whole song is about 18½ minutes, a point he made a big deal of in the 1996 re-recording). It made me decide to stop for the night. It might have saved my life.
The very next Thanksgiving, I happened to catch a radio station playing it while I was driving around, a bit lost. From then on until the MP3 revolution, that was my Thanksgiving tradition too, even after I’d purchased my own copy of the album. Once I’d transferred my music collection to MP3 starting around 1999 or so, I stopped the Thanksgiving tradition, and now I just listen to it all the way through occasionally when one of the three live versions I have comes up on random play.
One local radio station here plays it four times on Thanksgiving so that everyone who wants to listen to it will have the chance.
Song makes me feel kinda old, I was in highschool when it came out. That was the glory era of alternative radio too, so I heard it a lot then. Now it’s just when I happen to hear it. Like on Thanksgiving.
Sorry, I would have posted sooner, but I was waiting for this thread to come back around again
While I haven’t heard it every one of my 34 Thanksgivings, I have over half of them, including this one. Which is why I was utterly shocked just a few years back when my best friend (who was 28 or 29 at the time) asked me while black Friday shopping if I’d ever heard that “strange song” she’d only heard for the first time the day before. I thought everyone, especially people who grew up in New England, were familar with the tradition, but I was wrong.
Our local Classic Rock station always plays it twice. I think it is noon and 6pm. A tradition they actually adopted from the WNEW that goes back decades. If I miss it though I have it on an Arlo CD and will play it. I use to own the movie but that was on VHS and is now dead and gone.
Just watched/listened to the linked MS-Word illustrated version. There are three references to the harmony. The first one is five-part, the next two are four-part. Maybe the baritone got drafted?
My tradition is to listen to “The First Thanksgiving” from “Stan Freberg Presents The United States Of America (Vol. I)” which includes the song “Take An Indian To Lunch”. - YouTube
I loaded up my shovels, rakes, and implements of destruction, I even had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, but I didn’t get around to more than humming a few bars.
My dad introduced me to Arlo Guthrie via cassette after many days of singing: I don’t want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motor-cicle.
I don’t waaaaaaanna die,
I just wanna ride on my motor-cy…cull.
Alice’s Restaurant must’ve taken up damn near a whole side of a cassette all on it’s own.
