Alice's Restaurant /Happy Thanksgiving

[Cosmo Blues]

.

[lark]

1. Tradition!

[Cosmo Blues]

7. Usually I'm not that traditional

But there are some...

[orthoclad]

2. Thanks for the link

even though I don't do googletube. But I definitely willl be listening to some of the many radio performances today.

"Alice's" is one of our great cultural treasures. High comedy out of bleak tragedy. Let's not forget the main point of the song and the movie: death. A million Vietnamese or more died back then; death, disease and birth defects from US chemical warfare continues. A friend from WV, old hill guy, died of Agent Orange just a few years ago. And the movie had Joni singing the haunting "Songs For Aging Children" at a funeral. Arlo's genius was to package that knife-point so that we laughed. Like Country Joe and others. Humor is effective.

I saw Arlo do the song circa 2000. He said the length of the song could explain that 17 minute gap in the Nixon tape.

[Cosmo Blues]

6. Actually it's about Thanksgiving and getting out of the draft

You must be a delight to be around/S

[orthoclad]

10. I had to register for the draft for Nam

I didn't go. I carved the phone number for a draft resister service into the interview table, and argued for hours that there were no three people who would always know my whereabouts (from the Official Draft Registration Form). My version of getting arrested for littering. I didn't get "see-lected", I was "ree-jected". And I didn't even have bone spurs.

Arlo successfully made black humor of a deadly situation: the Vietnam draft. 3.5 million dead from that little adventure (per wikipedia). My Lai hadn't happened yet when he met Officer Obie. The song is black humor about the Vietnam War, dressed up in holiday wrapping. (..."eat dead burnt bodies"...) Hey, that's the actual lyrics. Humor's a good way of dealing with pain, especially black humor. We're still coping with the traumas. Arlo's comedy songs helped.

I had a wonderful harvest feast a couple weeks ago. We'll have a roast today and play with the dog, but I took time out for a little something in solidarity with the 53rd annual Wampanoag Day Of Mourning, commemorating their genocide in Massachusetts.

Better than arguing with my trumpy relatives at dinner (grin).

[ificandream]

3. As someone originally from Massachusetts, I love this song. Thanks for posting.

[Cosmo Blues]

8. I am not usually

Into twangy stuff, but as someone above said, it's tradition

[ChazInAz]

4. A true classic.

Funny thing...I now live alone in a 120-year-old Kansas church. I'm tempted to someday become less reclusive and throw a ball-buster of a Thanksgiving Day Dinner and Massacree that can't be beat.
But not this year.

[Cosmo Blues]

9. Well ChazinAz who's actually in Kansas

Really counting on that Massacree comment as being a joke

[ChazInAz]

12. Rest assured, it is.

Wish there was still a bell in the tower, though. Just to annoy the neighbors, and make them wonder why it gets rung at seeming random on rare occasions .

[Cosmo Blues]

13. What I was trying to convey

Was Arlo said things with humor, you, not so much. So if you wanted to do that maybe you could have posted your own Happy Thanksgiving message. I signed up for the draft as a conscientious objector, it took them a year and a half to send me my draft which was one H or one I, I really can't remember, then my lottery number was high

[ChazInAz]

14. What?

You're reading things into my post that are simply not there.

[ificandream]

5. Make Thanksgiving Great Again! :)

[quaint]

11. This is an important tradition, pass it on to those after us.

Lots of interesting information on the song's wiki page.