A little Alice’s Restaurant for Thanksgiving?
Sure.
Why not.
After all, there’s not too many songs that manage to namecheck Thanksgiving anyway, and Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre” is quirky enough to fit the bill and stand up to repeated listenings, that is, if you only have to listen to it once a year.
Classic rock stations would play it on this day, as they tried to build some kind of enthusiasm for a holiday that doesn’t exactly scream classic rock.
And the funny thing is, “Alice’s Restaurant” isn’t even a real classic rock song. It plods along with the same width as “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and has enough hippie storytelling to hold your attention for a quarter-hour.
At the same time, I’ve heard it enough times that I’m not going to get worked up on Thanksgiving to the point where I’m digging out my old vinyl version and plugging the turntable in to actually hear it again.
At the time of this posting, I’ll be doing the obligatory holiday traveling, checking on relatives and playing the part of the family man. I’ll be able to lobby enough to get the Packers/Lions game on television, but alas, none of the places I’ll be picks up VH1 Classic.
And on VH1 Classic, my friends, it’s an entire fucking day of Bob Dylan.
That’s right: No Direction Home, Don’t Look Back, a concert….I guess you could say if I ruled the world, I wouldn’t be packing up the wife and kids to drag them around Southeast Iowa.
No sir: My ass would be planted firmly in front of the TV watching Bob.
Screw the turkey.
Screw Alice’s Restaurant.
But I don’t rule the world, so that means that I’m visiting relatives.
How does it feel?
Well, for starters, it doesn’t feel like a holiday.
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