Alice's Restaurant Massacree chords by Arlo Guthrie
Intro 1
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Verse 1
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This song is called "Alice's Restaurant"
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It's about Alice
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and the restaurant
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But "Alice's Restaurant" is not
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the name of the restaurant,
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that's just the name of this song
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That's why I call the song "Alice's Restaurant"
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Chorus 1
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
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at Alice's Restaurant
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You can get anything you want
D
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
Walk right in, it's around the back
F
D
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
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A
And you can get anything you want
D
G
C
G
at Alice's restaurant
Verse 2
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A
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago,
D
G
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was on two years ago on Thanksgiving
C
When my friend and I went up
A
to visit Alice at the restaurant
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G
But Alice doesn't live in the restaurant
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She lives in the church
F
nearby the restaurant, in the bell tower
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C
With her husband Ray and Facha, the dog
A
And livin' in the bell tower like that,
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G
they got a lot of room downstairs
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G
where the pews used to be
Verse 3
And
C
havin' all that room,
A
seein' as how they took out all the pews
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G
they decided that they didn't
C
G
have to take out their garbage
C
for a long time
A
D
We got up there,
we found all the garbage in there
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C
and we decide that it'd be a
friendly gesture for us
F
to take the garbage down to the city dump
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C
So we took the half-a-ton of garbage,
A
put it in the back of a red VW Microbus,
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G
took shovels and rakes
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G
and implements of destructon
Verse 4
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A
And headed on toward the city dump
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C
G
Well, we got there and there's a big sign
C
and a chain across the dump
A
D
Sayin: "Closed on Thanksgiving"
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and we had never heard of a dump
C
closed on Thanksgiving before
And with tears in our eyes we drove off
F
D
into the sunset lookin' for another place
C
to put the garbage
A
D
G
C
We didn't find one
G
Till we came to a side
Verse 5
C
A
road and off the side of the side road
D
G
was another fifteen- foot cliff
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G
And at the bottom of the cliff
C
was another pile of garbage
A
D
And we decided that one big pile was better
G
than two little piles
C
And rather than bring that one up,
we decided to throw ours down
F
That's what we did
D
Drove back to the church,
C
had a Thanksgiving dinner
A
that couldn't be beat
D
Went to sleep, and didn't get up
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C
G
until the next morning
Verse 6
When we got
C
A
a phone call from Officer Obie
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G
C
G
C
He said, "Kid,
A
we found your name on a envelope
D
G
at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage
C
Just wanted to know
if you had any information about it"
F
D
And I said, "Yes sir, Officer Obie,
I cannot tell a lie
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A
D
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I put that envelope under that garbage"
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G
Verse 7
C
After speakin' to to Obie
A
D
for about forty-five minutes on the telephone
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C
G
We finally arrived at the truth of the matter
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And he said that we had to go down
A
and pick up the garbage
D
And also had to go down
G
C
and speak to him at the Police Officer Station
F
So we got in the red VW microbus
With the shovels and rakes
D
and implements of destruction
C
And headed on
A
toward the Police Officer Station
D
G
Now, friends, there was only
C
G
one or two things that Obie could've
Verse 8
C
done at the Police Station
A
And the first was that he could've
D
G
give us a medal for bein' so
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G
brave and honest on the telephone
C
Which wasn't very likely,
A
and we didn't expect it
D
And and the other thing was
G
that he could've bawled us out
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And told us never to be seen
drivin' garbage around the vicinity again
F
D
Which is what we expected
C
But when we got to the Police Officer Station,
A
D
there was a third possibility
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C
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That we hadn't even counted upon,
Verse 9
and we was both
C
A
immediately arrested, handcuffed
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And I said, "Obie, I
C
G
C
don't think I can pick up the garbage
A
with these handcuffs on"
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G
He said "shut up kid,
C
get in the back of the patrol car"
And that's what we did,
and sat in the back of the patrol car,
F
and drove to the
D
quote, scene of the crime, unquote
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A
I want to tell you 'bout the town of
D
Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
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where this is happenin'
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Here they got three stop signs,
Verse 10
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A
two police officers, and one police car
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But when we got to the scene of the crime,
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G
C
there was five police officers
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and three police cars
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Bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years
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and everybody wanted to get in
the newspaper story about it
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And they was usin' up all kinds of
D
cop equipment that they had
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A
hangin' around the Police Officer Station
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They was takin' plaster tire tracks,
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footprints dog- smellin' prints
Verse 11
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And they took twenty-seven
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D
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8 x 10 colored glossy photographs
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with circles and arrows and a paragraph
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on the back
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Of each one explainin' what each one was,
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to be used as evidence against us
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Took pictures of the approach,
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the getaway, the northwest corner,
the southwest corner
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And that's not to mention
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the aerial photography
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D
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After the ordeal we
Verse 12
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went back to the jail
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Obie said he was gonna put us in a cell
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C
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He said "kid, I'm gonna put you in a cell
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I want your wallet and your belt"
A
D
And I said, "Obie, I can understand
your wantin' my wallet,
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C
so I don't have any money to spend in the cell
But what do you want my belt for?"
F
And he said "Kid,
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we don't want any hangin's"
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A
I said, "Obie, did you think I was gonna
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C
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hang myself for litterin'?" Obie said he
Verse 13
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A
was makin' sure, and, friends, Obie was
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'Cause he took out the toilet seat
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C
so I couldn't hit myself
G
over the head and drown
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A
And he took out the toilet paper
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so I couldn't bend the bars
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C
Roll out, to roll the toilet paper out the window,
slide down the roll and have an escape
F
Obie was makin' sure and it was
D
C
about four or five hours later that Alice
A
D
G
Remember Alice? it's a song 'bout Alice
C
G
Alice
Verse 14
C
came by and, with a
A
few nasty words to Obie on the side
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G
Bailed us out of jail,
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G
and we went back to the church,
C
had another Thanksgiving dinner
A
that couldn't be beat
D
And didn't get up until the next morning
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C
When we all had to go to court
F
We walked in, sat down, Obie came in
D
C
With the twenty-seven 8 by 10
colored glossy pictures
A
with the circles and arrows
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And a paragraph on the back each one,
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G
sat down
Verse 15
C
A
Man came in, said, "All rise!"
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C
G
We all stood up, and Obie stood up
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with the twenty- seven 8 by 10
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colored glossy pictures,
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and the judge walked in, sat down
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C
With a seein' eye dog and he sat down
We sat down
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D
Obie looked at the seein' eye dog
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then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10
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colored glossy pictures with the circles
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and arrows and a paragraph on the back
Verse 16
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each one
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And looked at the seein' eye dog
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G
C
G
And then at the twenty- seven
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A
8 x 10 colored glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
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G
And a paragraph on the back each one
and began to cry
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'Cause Obie came to the realization that
F
D
it was a typical case of American blind justice
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And there was nothin' he could do about it,
A
and the judge wasn't gonna look at
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the twenty-seven 8 by 10
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G
colored glossy pictures
Verse 17
C
with the circles and arrows and
A
D
a paragraph on the back each one
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C
Explainin' what each one was,
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C
to be used as evidence against us
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D
And we was fined fifty dollars
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and had to pick up the garbage in the snow
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But that's not what I came
F
D
to tell you about
C
A
Came to talk about the draft
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G
C
G
Verse 18
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A
They got a buildin' down New York City
D
's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in,
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C
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you get injected, in spected,
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A
detected, infected, neglected and selected
D
G
C
I went down and got my physical
F
examination one day,
D
and I walked in, sat down
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A
Got good and drunk the night before,
D
so I looked and felt my best
G
C
G
when I went in that morning
'Cause I
Verse 19
C
wanted to look like the All-American
A
kid from New York City
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Man, I wanted, I wanted to
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G
feel like all, I wanted
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A
to be the All-American kid from New York
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G
And I walked in, sat down, I was hung down,
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brung down, hung up
and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things
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D
And I walked in, I sat down,
C
they gave me a piece of paper said,
A
D
G
"Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604", and
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I went up there, I said,
Verse 20
C
A
D
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"Shrink, I wanna kill,
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C
I wanna, I wanna kill
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D
Kill, I want, I wanna see,
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I wanna see blood and gore and guts
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and veins in my teeth
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Eat dead, burnt bodies
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A
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I mean kill, kill! Kill! Kill!"
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G
And I started jumpin' up and
Verse 21
C
A
down, yellin' "Kill, kill!"
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G
And he started jumpin' up and down with me,
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G
C
and we was both jumpin' up and down,
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D
yellin' "Kill! Kill!" and the sergeant
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came over, pinned a medal on me
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Sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy"
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Didn't feel too good about it
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Proceeded on down the hall,
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D
gettin' more injections, inspections,
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C
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detections, neglections, and all kinds of stuff
Verse 22
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A
that they was doin' to me at the thing there
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And I was there for two hours,
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three hours, four hours
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A
I was there for a long time goin' through
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all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things
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And I was just havin' a tough time there,
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and they was inspectin', injectin',
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every single part of me,
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and they was leavin' no part untouched
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D
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Proceeded through, and I's
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When finally came to see
Verse 23
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the very last man
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F#dim7
I walked in, walked in sat down,
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Abdim7
after whole big thing there,
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and I walked up and said,
"What do you want?"
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He said, "Kid, we only got one question:
Have you ever been arrested?"
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G/B
Verse 24
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And I proceeded to tell him the story
D
G
of Alice's Restaurant Massacree,
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G
with full orchestration
C
A
and five-part harmony and stuff like that,
and then all the phenomena
D
He stopped me right there and said,
G
"Kid, did you ever go to court?"
Verse 25
C
A
I proceeded to tell him the story
D
G
of the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy
C
G
pictures with the circles and arrows
C
A
and the paragraph on the back of each one,
D
and he stopped me right there and said,
"Kid, I want you to go over and sit down
on that bench that says Group W
Now, kid!
G
Verse 26
C
A
D
G
C
G
And I, I walked over to the,
to the bench there and there is,
C
there is Group W, that's where,
A
where they put you if you you may not be
D
moral enough to, to join the army
G
after committing your special crime
C
An' here was all kinds of mean, nasty,
ugly-lookin' people on the bench there
F
D
Mother-rapers, father-stabbers,
C
father-rapers!
A
D
Father-rapers sitting right there
G
on the bench next to me!
C
G
And they was
Verse 27
C
A
D
mean and ugly and horrible crime-type guys
G
C
sitting there on the bench
G
C
And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one,
A
the meanest father-raper of them all,
D
was coming over to me
G
and he was mean and ugly and nasty
C
and horrible and all kind of things
F
And he sat down next to me and said,
D
C
A
"Kid, what'd you get?"
D
I said, "I didn't get nothing,
G
C
G
I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up
Verse 28
C
A
the garbage"
D
G
He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
C
G
and I said, "Littering"
C
A
And they all moved away from me
D
G
on the bench there, and the the hairy eyeball
C
and all kinds of mean nasty things,
'til I said, "And creating a nuisance,"
F
D
and they all came back, shook my hand,
C
and we had a great time on the bench,
A
talkin' about crime, mother-stabbing,
D
G
C
father-raping, all kinds of groovy things
G
that we was talking about
Verse 29
C
on the bench
A
And everything was was fine,
D
we was smoking cigarettes
G
and all kinds kinds of things,
C
G
until the sergeant came over
C
A
D
Had some paper in his hand
G
Held it up and said, "Kids,
C
this piece of paper's got
forty-seven words, thirty-seven sentences,
fifty-eight words, we wanna know
details of the crime, time of the crime,
any other kind of thing you gotta say
pertaining to and about the crime,
I wanna know the arresting officer's name,
G
any other kind of thing you gotta say"
Verse 30
And he talked for
C
A
forty-five minutes and nobody understood
D
a word that he said,
G
C
G
but we had fun filling out the forms
C
and playing with the pencils
A
on the bench there
D
G
I filled out the massacree with the
C
four-part harmony, and wrote it down there,
F
just like it was, and everything was fine
D
And I put down the pencil,
C
A
and I turned over the piece of paper, and,
D
G
and there
C
There on other side
F
D
In the middle of the other side
C
A
D
G
Away from everything else
C
G
on the other side
Verse 31
C
A
D
G
In parentheses
C
G
C
A
Capital letters
D
G
Quotated
C
F
D
Read the following words: "Kid,
C
A
you rehabiltated yourself?"
D
G
C
I went over to the sergeant,
G
I said, "Sergeant, you got a
Verse 32
C
A
lotta damn gall to ask me
D
G
if I've rehabilitated myself
C
G
I mean, I mean,
C
A
I mean that just,
D
I'm sittin' here on the bench
G
Mean I'm sittin' here,
C
on the Group W bench,
F
'cause you want to know if I'm
D
C
moral enough to join the army,
A
burn women, kids, houses and villages
D
G
after being a litterbug"
C
G
Verse 33
C
A
He looked at me and said, "Kid,
D
G
C
G
we don't like your kind
C
And we're gonna send your
A
fingerprints off to Washington"
D
G
C
And, friends, somewhere in Washington
enshrined in some little folder,
F
is a study in black and white
D
C
A
of my fingerprints
D
G
And the only reason I'm singing you this song
C
G
now is 'cause you may know
Verse 34
C
A
D
G
somebody in a similar situation
C
G
C
Or you may be in a similar situation
A
And if you're in a situation like that
D
there's only one thing you can do,
G
C
and that's walk into the shrink
wherever you are, just walk in,
F
D
say "Shrink,
C
A
you can get anything you want,
D
G
C
at Alice's restaurant"
G
And walk out
Verse 35
C
A
You know, if one person,
D
G
just one person does it,
C
G
they may think he's really
C
A
sick, and they won't take him
D
G
And if two people, two people do it,
C
in harmony they may
F
think they're both faggots
D
and they won't take either of 'em
C
A
D
G
And if three people do it,
C
G
Verse 36
C
three, can you imagine?
A
D
Three people walking in, singing a bar of
G
C
G
"Alice's Restaurant" and walking out?
C
A
They may think it's an organization
D
G
And can you, can you imagine fifty people
C
a day, I said fifty people a day!
F
Walkin' in, singin' a bar of "Alice's Restaurant"
D
and walking out
C
And friends, they may think it's a movement!
A
And that's what it is,
D
G
C
G
the Alice's Restaurant An ti- Massacree
Verse 37
C
A
Movement, and all you got to do to join
D
G
is sing it the next time it comes
C
G
around on the guitar
C
A
With feeling
D
G
So we'll wait 'til it comes around
C
on the guitar here, sing it when it does
F
D
C
A
Here it comes
D
G
C
G
Chorus 2
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
C
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
Walk right in, it's around the back
F
D
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
C
G
at Alice's restaurant
Verse 38
C
A
D
G
That was horrible
C
G
You want to end war
C
A
and stuff, you got to sing loud
D
You could put a lot—
G
I've been singing this song now
C
for twenty-five minutes
F
I could sing it for another
D
twenty-five minutes
C
A
I'm not proud
D
G
Or tired
C
G
So we'll wait 'til it comes
Verse 39
C
A
around again, and this time with
D
G
four- part harmony and feeling
C
G
C
A
We're just waiting for it
D
G
to come around is what we're doing
C
F
D
C
A
D
G
All right now
C
G
Chorus 3
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
G
(excepting Alice)
C
A
You can get anything you want
D
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
Said walk right in, it's around the back
F
D
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
C
A
And you can get anything you want
D
G
at Alice's restaurant
C
D
Da- da-da- da-da- da-da- dum
G
At Alice's Restaurant
C
F
Fm
C
G
C
Alice's Restaurant Massacree
Arlo Guthrie
Speed: 1.0x
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