Chord Alice's Restaurant Massacree - Arlo Guthrie

[Intro 1]
C  A
D  G  C  G
C  A
D  G
C  C
F  D
C  A
D  G  C  G

[Bait 1]
C                          A
This song is called "Alice's Restaurant"
      D         G
It's about Alice
C  G
C                  A
and the restaurant
             D
But "Alice's Restaurant" is not
         G
the name of the restaurant,
       C
that's just the name of this song
             F                         D
That's why I call the song "Alice's Restaurant"
C  A
D  G  C  G

[Reff 1]
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
And you can get anything you want
           D  G          C  G
at Alice's restaurant

[Bait 2]
C                         A
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago,
       D             G           C     G
was on two years ago on Thanksgiving
                   C
When my friend and I  went up
         A
to visit Alice at the restaurant
D                      G
But Alice doesn't live in the restaurant
    C
She lives in the church
                                   F
nearby the restaurant, in the bell tower
                 D                      C
With her husband Ray and Facha, the dog
                       A
And livin' in the bell tower like that,
                  D        G
they got a lot of room downstairs
          C    G
where the pews used to be

[Bait 3]
And
C
havin' all that room,
          A
seein' as how they took out all the pews
D            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
G                            C
and we decide that it'd be a
friendly gesture for us
                            F
to take the garbage down to the city dump
   D                                  C
So we took the half-a-ton of garbage,
                        A
put it in the back of a red VW Microbus,
D                G
took shovels and rakes
         C        G
and implements of destructon

[Bait 4]
    C                            A
And headed on toward the city dump
D  G
      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"
                       G
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

[Bait 5]
C                            A
road and off the side of the side road
            D             G
was another fifteen- foot cliff
    C     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
G              C          G
until the next morning

[Bait 6]
When we got
C                          A
a  phone call from Officer Obie
D  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
C    A                            D        G
I put that envelope under that garbage"
C  G

[Bait 7]
C
After speakin' to to Obie
    A                               D
for about forty-five minutes on the telephone
   G               C            G
We finally arrived at the truth of the matter
            C
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

[Bait 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
      C             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
                  C
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
           G                C    G
That we hadn't even counted upon,

[Bait 9]
and we was both
C                        A
immediately arrested, handcuffed
      D                 G
And I said, "Obie, I
      C       G                       C
don't think I can pick up the garbage
                         A
with these handcuffs on"
        D             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
C                                    A
I want to tell you 'bout the town of
                            D
Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
              G
where this is happenin'
          C         G
Here they got three stop signs,

[Bait 10]
C                               A
two police officers, and one police car
         D                G
But when we got to the scene of the crime,
C  G                C
there was five police officers
                 A
and three police cars
                  D                       G
Bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years
                        C
and everybody wanted to get in
the newspaper story about it
                   F
And they was usin' up all kinds of
    D
cop equipment that they had
C                                 A
hangin' around the Police Officer Station
                D            G
They was takin' plaster tire tracks,
           C  G
footprints dog- smellin' prints

[Bait 11]
C
And they took twenty-seven
A                      D              G
8  x 10 colored glossy photographs
        C               G
with circles and arrows and a paragraph
C
on the back
            A
Of each one explainin' what each one was,
D                                 G
to be used as evidence against us
C
Took pictures of the approach,
                                   F
the getaway, the northwest corner,
the southwest corner
           D
And that's not to mention
       C
the aerial photography
A  D  G
      C  G
After the ordeal we

[Bait 12]
C
went back to the jail
     A
Obie said he was gonna put us in a cell
D                 G                C       G
He said "kid, I'm gonna put you in a cell
                   C
I want your wallet and your belt"
A                                      D
And I said, "Obie, I can understand
your wantin' my wallet,
           G                              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,
         D
we don't want any hangin's"
C                     A
I said, "Obie, did you think I was gonna
       D                    G  C  G
hang myself for litterin'?" Obie said he

[Bait 13]
C                               A
was makin' sure, and, friends, Obie was
                              D
'Cause he took out the toilet seat
     G              C
so I couldn't hit myself
  G
over the head and drown
C                                   A
And he took out the toilet paper
                            D
so I couldn't bend the bars
             G                             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

[Bait 14]
C
came by and, with a
          A
few nasty words to Obie on the side
D                G
Bailed us out of jail,
       C         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
     G                            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
          D                 G
And a paragraph on the back each one,
C      G
sat down

[Bait 15]
C      A
Man came in, said, "All rise!"
D         G                  C        G
We all stood up, and Obie stood up
                       C
with the twenty- seven 8  by 10
               A
colored glossy pictures,
                         D
and the judge walked in, sat down
              G                       C
With a seein' eye dog and he sat down
We sat down
 F                                D
Obie looked at the seein' eye dog
C                           A
then at the twenty-seven 8  x 10
               D                 G
colored glossy pictures with the circles
           C     G
and arrows and a paragraph on the back

[Bait 16]
     C
each one
              A
And looked at the seein' eye dog
D  G  C      G
And then at the twenty- seven
C                      A
8  x 10 colored glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
    D                               G
And a paragraph on the back each one
and began to cry
C
'Cause Obie came to the realization that
             F                          D
it was a typical case of American blind justice
                  C
And there was nothin' he could do about it,
        A
and the judge wasn't gonna look at
    D              G
the twenty-seven 8 by 10
C       G
colored glossy pictures

[Bait 17]
C
with the circles and arrows and
  A                          D
a paragraph on the back each one
                G             C
Explainin' what each one was,
      G                 C
to be used as evidence against us
A                                 D
And we was fined fifty dollars
                   G
and had to pick up the garbage in the snow
C
But that's not what I came
             F    D
to tell you about
C       A
Came to talk about the draft
D  G  C  G

[Bait 18]
     C                                 A
They got a buildin' down New York City
                            D
's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in,
G                    C  G
you get injected, in spected,
          C              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
C                                 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

[Bait 19]
    C
wanted to look like the All-American
A
kid from New York City
D                 G
Man, I wanted, I wanted to
C    G
feel like all, I wanted
C                  A
to be the All-American kid from New York
    D                         G
And I  walked in, sat down, I was hung down,
            C
brung down, hung up
and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things
F                         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
C  G
I  went up there, I said,

[Bait 20]
C           A                D  G
"Shrink, I wanna kill,
C  G                   C
I wanna, I wanna kill
A        D
Kill, I  want, I wanna see,
     G
I wanna see blood and gore and guts
C
and veins in my teeth
          F               D
Eat dead, burnt bodies
             C  A              D  G
I mean kill, kill! Kill! Kill!"
C     G
And I started jumpin' up and

[Bait 21]
      C                 A
down, yellin' "Kill, kill!"
               D                 G
And he started jumpin' up and down with me,
C          G                         C
and we was both jumpin' up and down,
               A                          D
yellin' "Kill! Kill!" and the sergeant
                          G
came over, pinned a medal on me
                       C
Sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy"
       F                      D
Didn't feel too good about it
             C
Proceeded on down the hall,
             A                        D
gettin' more injections, inspections,
            G               C          G
detections, neglections, and all kinds of stuff

[Bait 22]
C                               A
that they was doin' to me at the thing there
                    D          G
And I was there for two hours,
C            G
three hours, four hours
C                         A
I was there for a long time goin' through
             D                        G
all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things
               C
And I was just havin' a tough time there,
                           F
and they was inspectin', injectin',
             D
every single part of me,
                     C
and they was leavin' no part untouched
A            D                G
Proceeded through, and I's
C         G
When finally came to see

[Bait 23]
    C
the very last man
         A             F#dim7
I walked in, walked in sat       down,
  Gdim7              Abdim7
after      whole big thing     there,
Adim7                    Bbdim7
and      I walked up and said,
"What do you want?"
   Bdim7                  Cdim7        Dbdim7
He said,    "Kid, we only got      one question:
Have you ever been arrested?"
G  G/B

[Bait 24]
C                              A
And I proceeded to tell him the story
                      D     G
of Alice's Restaurant Massacree,
     C  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?"

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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"

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Reff 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

[Bait 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

[Bait 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

[Reff 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