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{{About|the song|the album|Alice's Restaurant (album)|the film|Alice's Restaurant (film)}}
{{Infobox song
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"'''Alice's Restaurant Massacree'''", commonly known as "'''Alice's Restaurant'''", is a satirical [[talking blues]] song by singer-songwriter [[Arlo Guthrie]], released as the title track to his 1967 debut album ''[[Alice's Restaurant (album)|Alice's Restaurant]]''. The song is a deadpan protest against the [[Draft lottery (1969)|Vietnam War draft]], in the form of a comically exaggerated but largely true story from Guthrie's own life: while visiting acquaintances in [[Stockbridge, Massachusetts|Stockbridge]], Massachusetts, he is arrested and convicted of dumping trash illegally, which later endangers his suitability for the [[Conscription|military draft]]. The title refers to a restaurant owned by one of Guthrie's friends, artist [[Alice Brock]]. Although Brock is a minor character in the story, the restaurant plays no role in it aside from being the subject of the chorus and the impetus for Guthrie's visit.
The song inspired the 1969 film [[Alice's Restaurant (film)|''Alice's Restaurant'']], which starred Guthrie and took [[Alice's Restaurant (film)#Differences from real life|numerous liberties with the story]]. The work has become Guthrie's [[signature song]] and he has periodically re-released it with updated lyrics. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the [[National Recording Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or
== Characteristics ==
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=== Prologue ===
Guthrie states that the song is
===Part One===
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=== Developing tradition ===
{{Inline citations|date=May 2023|part of the article}}
It has become a tradition for many [[classic rock]] and [[adult album alternative]] radio stations to play the song each Thanksgiving.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/11/23/as_a_holiday_staple_alices_lives_here_evermore/ |title=As a holiday staple, 'Alice's' lives here evermore – The Boston Globe |publisher=Boston.com |date=2006-11-23 |access-date=2015-11-26}}</ref> Despite its
By the late 1970s, Guthrie had removed the song from his regular concert repertoire.<ref name=rollingstone/> In 1984, Guthrie, who was supporting [[George McGovern]]'s ultimately unsuccessful comeback bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,<ref>{{cite book |last=Marano |first=Richard Michael |title=Vote Your Conscience: The Last Campaign of George McGovern |publisher=Praeger Publishers |year=2003 |page=172}}</ref> revived "Alice's Restaurant" to protest the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan Administration]]'s reactivation of the [[Selective Service System]] registrations. That version has not been released on a commercial recording; at least one [[bootleg recording|bootleg]] of it from one of Guthrie's performances exists. It was this tour, which occurred near the 20th anniversary of the song (and continued as a general tour after McGovern dropped out of the race), that prompted Guthrie to return the song to his playlist every ten years, usually coinciding with the anniversary of either the song or the incident. The 30th anniversary version of the song includes a follow-up recounting how he learned that [[Richard Nixon]] had owned a copy of the song, and he jokingly suggested that this explained the famous [[18½-minute gap]] in the [[Watergate]] tapes.
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[[File:Alice's Restaurant.jpg|alt=A restaurant front|thumb|Namesake Alice's Restaurant in Sky Londa, California]]
Alice's Restaurant of [[Sky Londa, California]], founded in the 1960s, was originally founded by Alice Taylor with no connection to Alice Brock. Subsequent owners of the restaurant kept the original name as a homage to the song, eventually adding a "Group W bench," because the name had made the restaurant a tourist attraction that was "good for business."<ref name=skylonda>{{cite web|url=http://www.mobileranger.com/blog/highway-35-alice-in-skylonda-land/ |title=Highway 35: Alice in Skylonda Land |publisher=Skyline Historical Society |access-date=2016-06-20}}</ref>
[[Smalltalk]] the programming language was written around the same time. The song played a minor role that lives on today. The choices to adopt some of the language in the song has spread to other languages that may not even know that Alice's Restaurant helped to inspire. The lyrics: "They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, Where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, Neglected and selected." helped shape the programming methods #inject #inspect #detect, #select. <ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-04-29 |title=Injected, Inspected, Detected, Infected, Neglected and Selected |url=https://news.squeak.org/2014/04/29/injected-inspected-detected-infected-neglected-and-selected/ |access-date=2024-04-15 |website=The Weekly Squeak |language=en}}</ref>
==Feature film==
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[[Category:Songs about New York City]]
[[Category:Satirical songs]]
[[Category:
[[Category:American folk rock songs]]
[[Category:Songs about restaurants]]
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