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And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officers’ station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner—and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt.” And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet, so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?”

And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.”

I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?” Obie said he was making sure—and friends, Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took put the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars, roll out the—roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice–

—Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.

Man came in, said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down with a seeing-eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing-eye dog–and then at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one–and looked at the seeing-eye dog—

—and then at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one—and began to cry ‘cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

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. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.

‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man; I wanted—I wanted to feel like the all—I wanted to be the all-American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I wanna 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 jumpin’ up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

Proceeded on down the hall, gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched.

Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in, sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?”

He said: “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome—and he stopped me right there and said:

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said:

“Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W ... NOW, kid!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-looking people on the bench there. Mother-rapers. Father-stabbers. Father-rapers! Father-rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me.

And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one—the meanest father-raper of them all—was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Littering.”

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin’ about crime, mother-stabbing, father-raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.

And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sergeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up, and said “Kids, thispieceofpapersgot47words37sentences58wordswewannaknowdetailsofthecrimetimeofthecrimeandanyotherkindofthingyougottasaypertainingtoandaboutthecrimeIwanttoknowarrestingofficer’snameandanyotherkindofthingyougottasay—”

And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacree with the four-part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil…

…and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

I went over to the sergeant, said, “Sergeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself. I mean—I mean—I mean–that–just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench—I mean, I’m sittin’ here on the Group W bench ‘cause you want to know if I’m moral enough to join the army–burn women, kids, houses and villages–after bein’ a litterbug.” He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.

And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is ‘cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you’re in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s: walk into the shrink—wherever you are—just walk in, say “Shrink, ‘you can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant’”, and walk out.

You know, if one person–just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people–two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine?—Three people walking in, singin’ a bar of “Alice’s Restaurant”, and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day—I said, fifty people a day, walking in, singin’ a bar of “Alice’s Restaurant”, and walking out. And friends–they may think it’s a movement.

And that’s what it is, the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar. With feeling. So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here, and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant
Walk right in, it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I’ve been singing this song now for twenty-five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty-five minutes. I’m not proud… or tired. So we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four-part harmony and feeling. We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant (excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant
Said, walk right in, it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant

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Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice’s restaurant

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