Talk:Alice's Restaurant

message: I happened to be having Thanksgiving in Stockbridge so was curious to try to reproduce the garbage tour. The church, now the Guthrie Center, was easy to find, but the dump was not. The Guthrie Center outlines the route here: . I asked someone at the desk of the local Red Lion Inn and was told that the dump had since moved but that the original dump was located at roughly , which more-or-less matches the description given by the Guthrie Center, although there is no sign of a dump at the moment. The Police Officers' Station is still located at  (on the west end of Main St.).
The restaurant itself is apparently now under the name Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe and located at 40 Main St., Stockbridge, MA. Does anyone have any more information on these locations? —BenFrantzDale 00:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It was gray and horrible and nasty yesterday during the 1 hour I had to explore Stockbridge. Theresa' Restaurant was still there at 40 Main Street, sign and all. The Trinity Church aka Guthrie Center was still there and happy. I saw a couple of cop cars parked in about the place you referenced on the way from point a to point b. But, the weather was just too awful to explore for anything else. Will be up again in the summer and will hopefully have more time to find the exact locations. Karinagw (talk) 10:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Did anyone else just naturally start reading the above posts in the style of this song?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:02, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Geographic Information

message: I have a question... I seem to recall reading awhile ago that the sign above the hallway entrance read "Bring Your Own God", and I have always attributed that quote as such. Has the sign changed, or is this quote is atributed to something else. If so, what or who?  - Nero Kalem  15:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guthrie Center 

message: It's per Wikipedia style guidelines. This from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Avoid_overlinking_dates
:Avoid overlinking dates
:If the date does not contain a day and a month, date preferences will not work, and square brackets will not respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so. Make only links relevant to the context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links.
:Usage of links for date preferences
:* year only. So 1974 → 1974. Generally, do not link unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic.
:* month only. So April → April. Generally, do not link
:* century. So 20th century → 20th century. Generally, do not link
:* decade. So 1970s → 1970s. Generally, do not link (Including an apostrophe [1970's] is incorrect)
:* year and month. So April 1974 → April 1974 Generally, do not link
:* new year and month. So April 2000 → April 2000 Generally, do not link unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. Presently, articles only exist for combinations from the year 2000 to current
:* day of the week (with or without other date elements). So Tuesday → Tuesday. Generally, do not link.--Tenebrae 04:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reason for deleting wikidate overlinkage

message: As the article plainly states, the name of the song is technically "Alice's Restaurant Massacree."  Should the article be moved there?  Wencer 16:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the naming conventions guidelines say that articles should be at their most common name. Putting the full name in the article is not a problem, but putting an article at an uncommon name is. --Dhartung | Talk 20:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The album is called Alice's Restaurant, though. By incorrectly titling this song, we're forcing the article on the album to use a different title. Since the album was the first thing to use the title, its article should be titled Alice's Restaurant and the song's Alice's Restaurant Massacree.
70.69.239.103 06:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

text: First of all, I doubt that you have any actual evidence that "Alice's Restaurant" is more commonly used than "Alice's Restaurant Massacree." Secondly, the naming conventions also state that exceptions may be made for "enhanced precision, cleaner disambiguation and/or solution of naming conflicts." Since "Alice's Restaurant" is also the title of the album and the movie, I believe that using the correct name for the song would fit that criteria. 134.197.110.165 02:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  While I have no sources, I'm sure "Alice's Restaurant" is by far the more common phrasing. Still, if "Massacree" is in official title on the album, then it should be included in the page name. Plus, it's fitting for this oddball long song to have a corresponding title. —Ben FrantzDale 04:38, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move? 

message: Is Weird Al's "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" really a parody, or doesn't it just use the same tune and nothing more?  I recall a short-lived Kodak product, the "Kodak Disc," using the same tune as well for that matter. Шизомби 12:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've listened to Weird Al for years, and when I ran across that statement in this article, I couldn't even figure out why it would be a parody. I just assumed the originator knew something I didn't (shows how much I expect to find good citing, I guess). Now that I think about it, though, I can see how one might think it was a parody, though IIRC, the tunes aren't identical. Extremely close, yes. Identical, no. There's a bit in the melody in Weird Al's that are different from Guthrie's, enough that I didn't relate the two previously, I guess. The signature guitar part from Alice's Restaurant is also missing, I believe (it's been a while since I heard the Weird Al track, though). I'm removing the disputed line for now. The "other performers" bit attached to it probably isn't notable enough to incorporate into the main article (songs are parodied by various performers all the time), but if someone wants to find a place for it, that's fine. --Fru1tbat 20:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoofs?

message: It's not really clear whether they were find $50 each, or $50 total, so I'm removing each. Superm401 - Talk 00:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fine 

message: Removed a paragraph "This Thanksgiving Day tradition is honored on the web by special permission on this one day of the year. Users may listen to the original release of Alice's Restaurant, only on Thanksgiving Day each year." 
Because someone keeps removing the link to where the special permission is allowed... thus making it appear as if ANYONE may stream the audio legally on this one day. They may not, and of course do stream it anyway, but this gives credence to those whom do not have said permission. 
Anyway, if the link can't stay, then neither should this reference, becasue it now sends the wrong message. 
After securing the special permission, I was hoping to share this on Wikipedia, but I'm afraid someone thinks it is an ad attempt or spam. Anyway, I wish to withdraw the paragraph, if the link is not allowed.  http://chat-rock.com/
Thanks. 
 - Tony Turner 19:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would imagine that the MySpace audio at audio reference and the lyrics at lyrics reference could be referenced in this article with no problem, if desired. David Spector (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal to Play 

message: Is the extra "e" intentional and accurate? LordAmeth 20:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Massacree" is a US regional colloquialism of "massacre." It is an Anglicization of the French word massacrée, the past participle of massacre, "to slaughter." TechBear (talk) 21:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Great.  Could we get this information into the article?  Because it's relevant.  Thanks, Maikel (talk) 15:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:   Done! you can get anything you want, at Wikipedia —Boruch Baum (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  Much appreciated. Maikel (talk) 11:18, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massacree? 

message: :Image:Alice's Restaurant.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 07:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Alice's Restaurant.jpg

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
*Oppose - no evidence anywhere that the song is called "Alice's restaurant massacre", even when spelled correctly.  See reference 1, on Arlo Guthrie site, and the external links: http://worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=885 refers to it as "the title song" of the album. PamD (talk) 21:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: Could Alice's Restaurant be considered a Novelty Song?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.107.225.84 (talk) 05:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Novelty song? 

message: The article states that Alice's Restaurant received its first public airing on WBAI in 1967. While this is probably true for the Massacree, the chorus originated (as told in the film) as an ad for the restaurant. Previous versions of the song also exist. I have a bootleg of a 1966 show in which Arlo sang a ~13 minutes version with different parts to the final version, and no mention of the Thanksgiving occurences. 194.94.206.6 (talk) 12:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Previous versions 

message: During Thanksgiving a section appears on this article with a laundry list of radio stations playing the song.  Then the section is deleted because it does not add to the article.  Other than having a brief statement that it gets airplay during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, is there any reason to list all the stations that play the song?  If not, the section should be deleted.  Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 01:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the laundry list of radio stations breaks the flow of the page. But disagree that it does not add to the article.  Alice's Restaurant is an ongoing cultural phenomena, listened to on radio stations all over the country. My radio station in Norfolk, Virginia has been airing it for 34 consecutive years, and has quite a local following. The radio list is not only a resource of where to listen, but a testament of active participation.  By removing the list one implicitly shifts the general perception from a still active audience -- to past tense.  Rather than remove the list, I would move list between "The movie" and "References" sections; thereby not breaking the previous flow, and keeping a useful resource reflecting an active audience). [This is my first post, sorry if I violated any/several guidelines.] Zatoichi 23 (talk) 14:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: First, welcome to Wikipedia and I hope you enjoy editing here.  Among the reasons that the large list of radio stations does not really fit an encyclopedia article are policies/guidlines such as WP:NOTDIRECTORY, WP:UNDUE, and WP:LISTCRUFT.  Also, none of the stations on the list had a reference, so it was all original research.  There is a sentence in 'The song' section stating that the song gets airplay on various radio stations on Thanksgiving (and that sentence has a citation).  That should suffice for noting the tradition.  Hope that helps.  Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 15:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanksgiving tradition 

message: The coordinates need the following fixes:
The coordinates seem to have two errors:
1) The location does not indicate "Alice's restaurant"* as described in the article quoted below, but apparently comes back to the former church/home/Guthrie Center**. 
2) The coordinates show up in the wrong location for the former church, indicating a spot at about 98 Division Street, on the wrong side of the railroad tracks and just West of the intersection of Division Street and Van Deusenville Road, where the former church/home/Guthrie Center** can be plainly seen on the aerial or satellite images linked, such as on Bing! or Google maps. 
"Alice's restaurant (formally known as the "Back Room Rest", named for its location down an alley behind a grocery store at 40 Main Street in Stockbridge, Massachusetts) was roughly six miles from the church—though true to the song, it was "just a half-a-mile from the railroad track". Formerly Maluphy's Restaurant, it ran the length of the building from front to back along the side alley. Owned by Alice for only a year before she and Ray divorced, it was, as of 2009, Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe, where a hand-painted sign indicates its former identity. The building's front as of 2009 is The Main Street Cafe."   
"The church, originally built as the St. James Chapel in 1829, was enlarged in 1866 and renamed Trinity Church. Ray and Alice Brock purchased the property in 1964 and made it their home...In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home, at 4 Van Deusenville Road, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, a nondenominational, interfaith meeting place."
I hope this is of some use; I have no first-hand knowledge, but only what I observed onthe site and links.
68.193.8.145 (talk) 06:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have changed the coordinates to the café in Stockbridge. Kyle McInnes[citation needed] 19:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinate error 

message: In 1974, and perhaps afterwards, Alice Brock operated Alice's Restaurant on Route 183 in Housatonic, about mid-way between Great Barrington and Stockbridge.  Absent any objection, I will add this in a few days. 
(I know that I am supposed to sign these things, but I do not know how to)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stwiso (talk • contribs) 23:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: The real restaurant and people

message: As of today, Thanksgiving Day (November 25) 2010, the section headed "Song" contains a paragraph that explains how, "After the release of the original album, Guthrie continued to perform the song in concert, frequently revising and updating the lyrical content. . . .  He sang a third version during the Bush administration which was recorded and released by the Kerrville Folk Festival."
It would help clarify matters substantially to indicate which Bush administration is being referred to here.  A few minutes of Googling reveal that Guthrie was the headline act (along with his daughter, and son-in-law) at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 2005, but that does not mean he did not perform there other years, possibly including the very late 1980s and/or very early 1990s.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.169.130 (talk) 20:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Later, Revised/Improvised Versions 

message: This song was a 60's Vietnam war protest song. Within the monologue, draftees are encouraged to sing a line of the song when registering for the draft. Is anyone known to have ever done this? If so, I think it would be historically significant to mention any incidents which occurred as a result of this song.
In addition, if anyone ever tried to commit a minor crime and get caught to avoid a crime, it may be pertinent to mention it in this article.
Either of these would help draw a more accurate picture of the times in which this song was written and performed.
Mellie107 (talk) 21:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Such incidents will need to be reliably sourced, of course. Doniago (talk) 12:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural "Fallout" 

message: In the summary box on the right-hand side of this article, the length is given as "18:37".  The fifth paragraph of the article, though, says it "lasts 18 minutes and 34 seconds", while the Alice's Restaurant (album) article gives the length as 18:20.  Which of these (if any) is correct? -- 86.129.220.189 (talk) 17:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of track 

message: Hi. I was just waltzing by, and couldn't resist beginning to edit this article; however, if the 'curators' are defensive and all, I'll just go away. I started with two pretty simple edits to the lead, and if the consensus is that it could do with more of a re-write (I strongly feel it could), I'll continue. Examples of other changes that could be made to the lead are to reduce the length of the very long sentences, and to remove citation information from the text itself (eg, "All Things Considered", "Rolling Stone") —Boruch Baum (talk) 21:58, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  copy-editing 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Alice's Restaurant. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070521215056/http://www.arlo.net:80/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml to http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In my opinion, needs mention of the mother rapers, father stabbers, and father rapers on the bench. But I wouldn't begin to know how to write that at the quality of the current content. Where is that guy?? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:20, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the Group W bench 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Alice's Restaurant. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151126103504/http://www.acousticguitar.com/News/Alice-s-Restaurant-50-Years-Later-Arlo-Guthrie-Reflects-on-His-Thanksgiving-Classic to http://www.acousticguitar.com/News/Alice-s-Restaurant-50-Years-Later-Arlo-Guthrie-Reflects-on-His-Thanksgiving-Classic
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article was moved from Alice's Restaurant to Alice's Restaurant Massacree on that basis of that being the official name, but I don't think that's consistent with Wikipedia policy. WP:COMMONNAME: 'Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources.' e.g. Jimmy Carter not James Earl Carter Jr. for ease of searching and linking. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 00:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm inclined to agree. I'd like a policy-backed reason for this move. DonIago (talk) 20:04, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: There was also a discussion 9 years ago that opposed a move, and no discussion since. This was done improperly. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 02:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article name 

message: I've removed from the section summarizing the song all of the details of the original incident that are not actually mentioned in the song. If someone wants to add some of this info (with the newspaper citation) to the "Historicity" section, that's fine, but they shouldn't be included in the summary, because they aren't included in the song itself, which is the actual subject of this article. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 15:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Story 

message: Has it been confirmed that Arlo Guthrie was rejected by the draft board because he had a criminal record from the littering incident? Or if he was rejected or exempted for some other reason, that ought to be explained in this article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree this claim sounds dubious.  It was common practice during this time to go into military service in lieu of serving jail sentences for much more severe crimes - ie. "go to the army or go to jail".  The idea that littering would disqualify a draftee is not believable.  Why go through the trouble of escaping to Canada when you could just throw your trash on the ground?   57.135.233.22 (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical accuracy 

message: Could we maybe have a little less guitarist baby-babble and some encyclopaedic language ? 
Next you’ll be calling a cadence a ‘turnaround’ and a melodic motif a ‘riff’.
Please. 124.150.90.27 (talk) 06:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:SOFIXIT? DonIago (talk) 17:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bookends? 

message: The link in the first sentence of the lede to Vietnam War goes to Draft_lottery_(1969).  That's probably the sentiment behind the song, but the link itself is misleading and should probably just go to Vietnam War, or the sentence should be restructured if the intent is to actually point to Draft_lottery_(1969).  57.135.233.22 (talk) 06:03, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading Link 

message: Given all the back and forth arguments about the title of this song, I find this extract from the lyrics funny: 
"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."
--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of the song