> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.sweatyspice.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Music: Arlo Guthrie
- URL: https://www.sweatyspice.com/music-arlo-guthrie/
- Published: 2024-07-10T11:40:09.000Z
- Updated: 2024-07-10T11:40:09.000Z
- Author: Geoff Anderson

Growing up, our family had a tradition on Thanksgiving. Every year, we would watch the movie, “Alice’s Restaurant”. Part of this tradition was because of our first stepfather being a military veteran[1](#footnote-1), and the movie was his favorite way to think back to his experience. 

Kinda weird, because the movie is about hippies.

Whatever, the net result is that for a decade or so, it was what we tuned in to on Turkey Day.

The story is about a hippie who gets arrested for dumping the trash in a ravine to clean up for a thanksgiving meal. The police get called, they find an address, and they arrest the hippies.

But the story is really the song, Alice’s Restaurant, eighteen and a quarter minutes of a rolling folk song, narrated by Arlo Guthrie, son of the master, Woody Guthrie, you know the [writer](https://americansongwriter.com/the-10-best-woody-guthrie-songs/?ref=sweatyspice.com) of “This Land is Your Land” a song that if you were Gen X, you sang in grade school. He also wrote “The House of the Rising Sun[2](#footnote-2)”.

Anyhow, since I picked up my new Martin, I have been digging into traditional folk songs that I heard my dad play when I was growing up (not the abusive stepfather), so when this popped up in my YT feed, I knew I needed to listen to it.

I know this might not be your jam, but it has a lot of sentimental value to me.

---

1. Much later in life, I read his discharge papers, and he got a dishonorable discharge because he purposefully got drunk and disruptive before he was cycled through to ‘Nam. I am torn, was this self-preservation, cowardly, or was he just an asshole. Since he beat the shit out of us with his belt, I take the latter. [↩](#footnote-anchor-1 "Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.")
2. Yeah, you probably thought that that was an original by The Animals. I did.  

---  
Go ahead, make my day, subscribe. Always FREE! [↩](#footnote-anchor-2 "Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.")