Video Classics: ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ – Arlo Guthrie

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

The song for which Arlo Guthrie shall forever be remembered, “Alice’s Restaurant” is a rock masterpiece that come in on the Firecracker 500 at spot … um …

… all right, so Alice’s Restaurant comes nowhere near the WNEW Firecracker 500 on either the 1991 or 1996 lists. But it still holds a special place in WNEW history.

18-and-a-half minutes in the performing, “Alice’s Restaurant” is a rambling musical narrative of an outrageous story (true, though embellished somewhat for the song) that began on Thanksgiving Day, 1965. As for the details of the story, you’ll have to listen to the song (if you don’t know them by heart already), but suffice to say that it became a counterculture anthem (and the entire A-side of Guthrie’s 1967 debut album). It also became a Thanksgiving tradition at WNEW.

Because the song is so long, it rarely receives airplay. Because of the subject matter, DJs and program directors found that the one time of the year they could justify playing it was Thanksgiving Day. After this was done for the second year in a row, it qualified as a ‘tradition’ in the minds of fans, and woe betide any who broke it.  Stories are still told of the one year in which a WNEW program director, looking to ‘overhaul’ the station, ordered that “Alice’s Restaurant” not be played on Thanksgiving. He left no holiday forwarding number, and when the station switchboard was flooded with outraged traditionalists wondering where the song was, the on-air DJ had to make an emergency call to the station manager on his holiday to authorize the tradition being restored.

In the end, the station manager’s Thanksgiving got interrupted, “Alice’s Restaurant” got played, the fans got satisfaction, and the program director got an earful on Monday. WNEW.com won’t make the same mistake he did, (actually, this year it slipped a certain editor’s mind, and thus it runs one day late … but it still runs) and therefor we offer up a link to a 2005 live performance of “Alice’s Restaurant” in all its uncut glory. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving from WNEW!

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