Rock Flashback: Thanksgiving With Sly, Zep, and Arlo

Arlo Guthrie (L) performs with Bruce Springsteen (C) and Tom Morello (R) in 2009 (Getty Images/Bryan Bedder)

Thirty years ago this Thanksgiving, a listener called at the end of my radio show to ask me why I hadn’t played any Thanksgiving songs yet. This was neither an idle nor playful query. The tone of her voice indicated that her gorge had been rising for a couple of hours with every non-Thanksgiving song she heard that morning. So maybe it wasn’t the most tactful thing I could have said when I replied, “Ma’am, if you can think of one, I’d be happy to play it.” I don’t think she had any ideas, because she hung up on me. In the intervening years, I have managed to come up with a few, which follow the jump.

Part of reaching our fullest potential as human beings involves being true to our true selves, whatever they are. Should we not be grateful to someone who permits us to achieve that potential? So: “Thank You (Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)” by Sly and the Family Stone.

Sometimes, we receive something from another person not because we’ve done anything to earn it, but out of the goodness of that person’s heart. So: “I Thank You” by Sam and Dave.  “You didn’t have to love me like you did, but you did, but you did, and I thank you.”

Oftentimes we spend Thanksgiving with our families, people who (if we’re lucky) have stood by us all our lives and will do so for as long as life lasts. So: “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin. “My love is strong, with you there is no wrong, together we shall go until we die.”

But the king of Thanksgiving songs, the one that album-rock and classic-rock radio stations always play on Thanksgiving Day, is the epic-length “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” by Arlo Guthrie, based on an incident that happened on Thanksgiving Day 1965. So here it is, in a live performance from the 2005 Farm Aid show.

Bonus Thanksgiving songs: anything by the Grateful Dead.

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