As a holiday staple, 'Alice's' lives here evermore
Thanksgiving Day brings us a rare moment of coming together. A tradition that crosses boundaries. No, it's not eating supper with family or even watching football. For radio fans and programmers alike, today's holiday is best celebrated by the playing of one song, Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant." That song, which was originally released as the 18-minute "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," will be heard today in various versions at noon on at least four major stations around the city: WUMB-FM (91.9), "The River" WXRV-FM (92.5), WZLX-FM (100.7), and WBCN-FM (104.1). WZLX will also air it at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
The song, which is usually broadcast in either the original album track form or the even longer 30th anniversary live version, relates a Thanksgiving story. In it, Guthrie talks about enjoying a Thanksgiving feast with friends in Stockbridge at the title restaurant. After that, things get weird. The singer relates taking out the trash and, having no place to legally drop it because of the holiday, dumping it illegally. This leads to a long, shaggy-dog tale of being arrested for littering that turns into both an anti-Vietnam War protest and a statement of human rights. Somehow, by the end, he has turned the song into a statement that in union there is strength. And the best way to demonstrate that communal strength? Everyone, as listeners know, must sing along with the familiar refrain: "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant." As the singer points out, if we can pull ourselves together to do that, we can change the world.
"It's a local song, a New England song, and it has become an institution," says Carter Alan of WZLX. As assistant program director of the classic rock station, he's programmed it for years. A former WBCN jock, he recalls playing it as far back as the 1980s. (WBCN did skip it for at least one year when the noon timing conflicted with a Patriots game.) "It's a great story and it's a funny story," he says. "It's just taken on a life of its own and become this Thanksgiving behemoth."
"People just connect it with Thanksgiving," says Brian Quinn, program director of WUMB, which has been playing the song for 20 years. "People look forward to it."
WUMB and WXRV air the 30th anniversary version. This updating, which lasts nearly 23 minutes, includes more humorous asides from Guthrie in which he mentions that a copy of his 1967 album was found among President Richard Nixon's belongings at the White House. The 18-minute gap on the Watergate tapes, he speculates, just could be connected.
WUMB follows the broadcast with a taped interview with Guthrie, recorded after a show at Club Passim. WBCN and WZLX, says Alan, stick with the original 1967 album track. There is a shorter version, originally released for radio airplay. But, says Alan, "if we ever start playing the short single version, that could be a sign of the apocalypse."
WZLX's three Thanksgiving day airings are in response to listener requests, says Alan. "You play it, and not more than 10 minutes after you're done with it, people are calling to ask when you'll play it again," he says. Those requests stop in the afternoon. "It's while people are preparing for the holiday or traveling back and forth that it's most effective."
Doesn't anyone call in for the unwieldy story-song after the holiday? No, says Alan. "But watch, this year somebody will."
