page_title: Alice's Restaurant
section_title: The draft
hierarchical_section_title: Alice's Restaurant / Historicity / The draft
context_page_description: "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", commonly known as "Alice's Restaurant", is a satirical talking blues song by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, released as the title track to his 1967 debut album Alice's Restaurant. The song is a deadpan protest against the Vietnam War draft, in the form of a comically exaggerated but essentially true story from Guthrie's own life: he is arrested and convicted of dumping trash illegally, which later leads to him being rejected by the draft board due to his criminal record of littering. The title refers to a restaurant owned by one of Guthrie's friends, which plays no role in the story aside from being the subject of the chorus.
  The song was an inspiration for the 1969 film also named Alice's Restaurant. The work has become Guthrie's signature song and he has periodically re-released it with updated lyrics. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant".
context_section_description: The Armed Forces Examination and Entrance Station was part of a large complex at 39 Whitehall Street in New York City from 1884 to 1969. By the late 1960s, the building had become a target for anti-war protesters, and two bombings left minor damage to the building, prompting the building to be vacated. The building has since been repurposed as a mixed-use development and its address changed (it is now 3 New York Plaza).
  The brief fleeting mention of "faggots" being rejected for military service in the song's epilogue was based on military policy at the time, which rejected all homosexuals and expelled anyone caught engaging in homosexual behavior with an undesirable discharge. In 1993, this was softened such that, so long as a service member did not publicly talk about homosexuality, they would not be discharged; open homosexuality was eventually allowed in 2012.
caption: The Army Building where Guthrie had his physical examination.
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