Arlo Guthrie

[fox69]

 

[fox69]

"1913 Massacre"

"1913 Massacre"



Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
To Calumet, Michigan in the copper country
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
And the miners are having their big Christmas ball

I'll take you in a door and up a high stairs
Singing and dancing is heard ev'rywhere
I'll let you shake hands with the people you see
And watch the kids dance 'round the big Christmas tree.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air
And the spirit of Christmas is there ev'rywhere
Before you know it you're friends with us all
And you're dancing around and around in the hall

You ask about work and you ask about pay
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day
Working their copper claims, risking their lives
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

A little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet
To hear all this fun; you would not realize
That the copper boss thug men are milling outside

The copper boss thugs stuck their heads in the door
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire"
A lady she hollered, "There's no such a thing;
Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."

A few people rushed and there's only a few
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you."
A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, about a hundred or more
But most everybody remained on the floor
The gun thugs, they laughed at their murderous joke
And the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see
We carried our children back up to their tree
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree
And the children that died there was seventy-three

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon
The parents, they cried and the men, they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done?"

 

[fox69]

"A Little This N That"

"A Little This N That"


My grandma she can make a soup
With a little a this n that
She can feed the whole sloop group
With a little a this n that
Stone soup! You know the story
Stone soup! Who needs the glory?
But with grandma cookin no need to worry!
Just a little a this n that

Grandma likes to make a garden grow
With a little a this n that
But she likes to have the ground just so
With a little a this n that
Not too loose and not too firm
In the spring it s all got to be turned
In the fall lots of compost to feed the worms
With a little a this n that

Grandma knows we can build a future
With a little a this n that
And a few arguments never never hurt ya
With a little a this n that
True this world's in a hell of a fix
And some say oil and water don't mix
But they don't know a saladmaker's tricks
With a little a this n that

The world to come may be like a song
With a little a this n that
To make everybody want to sing along
With a little a this n that
A little dissonance ain't no sin
A little skylarking to give us all a grin
Who knows
But God's got a plan for the people to win
With a little a this n that

[repeat 1st verse]

 

[fox69]

"Abiyoyo"

"Abiyoyo"


[Chorus:]
Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo
Abiyoyo, yoyoyo, yoyoyo

Once upon a time there was a little boy who
played the ukelele. He'd go around town,
'Blmp, blmp, blmp, blmp, blmp, blmp, blmp,
bImp blmp blmp, blmp blmp, blmp!'
Grown-ups said "Get that thing out of here!"

Not only that, the boy's father was a gettin'
in trouble. He was a magician. He had a
magic wand. He could go 'Zoop! Zoop!' make
things disappear. But the father played too
many tricks on people. Somebody doing a
hard job of work, 'zzt, zzt, zzt', up comes the
father with his magic wand, 'Zoop!' no saw.
Come to someone about to drink a nice cold
glass of something, 'Zoop!' the glass
disappears, He'd come to someone about
to sit down after a hard day's work, 'Zoopl' no chair.

People said to the father, "You get out
of here, too. Take your magic wand and
your son!" The boy and his father were
ostracized. That means they made them
live on the edge of town.

Now in this town they used to tell stories.
The old people used to tell stories about
the giants that lived in the old days They
used to tell a story about a giant called
Abiyoyo. They said he was as tall as a
house and could eat...people... up.
Of course, nobody believed it, but they
told the story anyway.

One day, one day, the sun rose, blood red
over the hill. And the first people got up
and looked out of their window, they saw a
great big shadow in front of the sun. And
they could feel the whole ground shake.
'Stomp, stomp'. Women screamed, 'Ahh!'
Strong men fainted "Ohh!" - "Run for
your lives! Abiyoyo's coming!"

He came to the sheep pasture, grabs a
whole sheep, 'Yeowp!' Comes to the cow
pasture, grabs a whole cow, 'Yeowp!'
Daniel, "Grab your most precious
possessions and run! Run!" Just then the
boy and his father woke up "Hey, Paw,
what's coming over the field?" - Oh, Son,
that's Abiyoyo. Oh, if I could only get him
to lie down, I could make him disappear."

The boy said "Come with me, Father." He
grabs his father by one hand. The father
gets the magic wand, the boy gets the
ukelele. They run across the field. People
yelled, "Don't go near him! He'll eat you
alive!" There was Abiyoyo. He had long
fingernails cause he never cut 'em.
Slobbery teeth, cause he didn't brush
them. Stinking feet, 'cause he didn't wash
'em. He raised up with his claws, the boy
whips out his ukelele and starts to sing.

[Chorus]

Well, you know the giant had never heard a song
about himself before, and a foolish grin spread
over the giant's face. And the giant started to
dance "Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo," the boy
went faster, "Abiyoyo, yoyoyo, yoyoyo. Abiyoyo,
Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo," The giant
got out of breath. He staggered. He fell down flat
on the ground 'Zoop!, Zoop!' people looked out
the window, Abiyoyo disappeared.

They ran across the fields. They lifted the boy
and his father up on their shoulders. They said,
"Come back to town. Bring your damn ukelele,
we don t care anymore!" And they all sang:

Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo
(Oh, you sing it with me,)
Abiyoyo Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo

 

[fox69]

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree"

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree"



This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant.
But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song, Alice's Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track
An' you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog.
And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be.
An' havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well, we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving."
And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage.
And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.
He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of ab' a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it."
And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said, that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer's station.
So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he coulda given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he coulda bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hangin' around the police officer's station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for litterin'?" Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice... Remember Alice? It's a song about Alice... Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that's not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down in New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. 'Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, kill, kill, kill." And I started jumpin' up and down yelling, "Kill! Kill!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "Kill! Kill!" And the Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

An' I proceeded on down the hall gettin' more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they as doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W, now kid!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin' your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Litterin'." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin' about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargent came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

("Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?")

I went over to the Sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench, 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant (Excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
(I said) Walk right in it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da-da da-da da-da da-dum
At Alice's Restaurant

 

[fox69]

"Alice's Rock & Roll Restaurant"

"Alice's Rock & Roll Restaurant"



You can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant
You can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant

Walk right in, it's around the back
'Bout a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant

You can eat anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant
I said, you can eat anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant

See that man sitting down under the seat
Walk up and tell him you want something to eat
Because you can eat anyone that you want
At Alice's restaurant
Oh, oh, yeah, mmm

I said you can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant
You can get anything that you want
Just as long as it's up front

Come on, baby, know you could
Go ask your mama if you should
Because you can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant

You can get anything that you want
At Alice's Rock and Roll restaurant
You can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant

Mama, walk in, it's around the back
'Bout a half a mile from the railroad track
I said, you can get anything that you want
At Alice's Rock and Roll restaurant, yeah
Whoa, mama, said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I walk in 'round the back, honey
Half a mile from the railroad track
Alice's restaurant

You can get anything that you want
At Alice's restaurant
You can get anything that you ever did want, babe
At the restaurant

You can get anything you want

 

[fox69]

"All Over The World"

"All Over The World"



I was watching the news tonight
And all over the world
People were singing and carrying signs
All over the world
Every body walking hand in hand
Through cities that I've been
And though I'm not there tonight
You know I'll be back again
I'll be back again, I'll be back again

I'm on a plane tonight for Germany
And All over the world
There are lots of people just like you and me
All over the world
Who know the bomb must never fall again
All over the world
And we must all learn how to live as friends
All over the world
All over the world, all over the world

We are making the news tonight
All over the world
Because we know that what we do is right
All over the world
Every body walking hand in hand
All over the world
Through the streets of Europe and Japan
All over the world
All over the world, all over the world

 

[fox69]

"All This Stuff Takes Time"

"All This Stuff Takes Time"



It ain't so much the boredom
But the fire in her soul
That made her life unbearable
While living in that hole
Of her dark suburban nightmare
'Till she went to see the Dead
And the self esteem she valued
Was immediately spent
And she had no one to turn to
So she just turned off her mind
She's a well adjusted wanderer
But all this stuff takes time

On the streets of old Wyoming
There's a couple from L.A.
They are post-environmentalists
Looking for to stay
'Till their friends all come to join them
In the quest for air to breathe
And when it gets too crowded
They will just pick up and leave
Like they did in New York City
When the coast seemed quite sublime
It don't take much but money
And money just takes time

Marie is on the lounge chair
Draped around the pool
Avoiding almost anyone who'd
Desecrate he cool
It's the reason she's attractive
She's already self abused
And her pride won't feel the loneliness
That comes with being used
She's the center of the universe
For which she was designed
Until she wakes up wandering
Why all this stuff takes time

Bill died of a heart attack
Beating up his wife
Now he's come back as a lesbian
That's looking for his wife
Who is now a psychoanalyst
That likes to work with plants
Except of course on weekends
When she likes to wear the pants
She's a leather goddess minister
Who works with the confined
It don't take much to realize
That all this stuff takes time

 

[fox69]

"All Work Together"

"All Work Together"



My mommy told me an' the teacher told me, too,
There's all kinds of work that I can do:
Dry my dishes, sweep my floor,
But if we all work together it won't take very long.

We all work together with a wiggle and a giggle,
We all work together with a giggle and a grin.
We all work together with a wiggle and a giggle,
We all work together with a giggle and a grin.

My sister told me,
Brother told me, too,
Lots an' lotsa work
That I can do.
I can bring her candy.
Bring him gum.
But if we all work together
Hadn't oughta take long. So

My daddy said,
And my grandpaw, too,
There's work, worka, work
For me to do.
I can paint my fence.
Mow my lawn.
But if we all work together,
Well, it shouldn't take long. So

I tell Mama an' Daddy,
Grampaw an' Granmaw, too,
I tell my sister an' my brother,
Lotsa work for you to do.
You can bring me pennie
And candy and gum;
But if we all work together
'town't take so very long. And so

We all work together with a wiggle and a giggle,
We all work together with a giggle and a grin.
We all work together with a wiggle and a giggle,
We all work together with a giggle and a grin.
With a wiggle and a giggle and a goggle and a goggle
And a jigger and a jagger and a giggle and a grin.

 

[fox69]

"Amazing Grace"

"Amazing Grace"


[Chorus:]
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
Oh how precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

[Chorus]

Shall I be wafted to the skies
On flowery beds of ease
While others strive to win the prize
And sail on bloody seas

[Chorus]