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A Thanksgiving Music Tradition Is Back On Thursday On KXT 91.7 FM

KXT
Tune in to KXT 91.7 FM Thursday at noon and 6 p.m. for all 18 minutes of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree."";s:

A Thanksgiving Day tradition continues this year on our sister station, KXT 91.7 FM.

Tune in Thursday at noon and 6 p.m.for all 18 minutes of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice’s Restaurant.

Our KXT friends give us the scoop:

The song is one of Guthrie’s most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the same name. Apart from the chorus which begins and ends it, the “song” is in fact a spoken monologue, with a repetitive but catchy ragtime guitar backing.

Though the song’s official title, as printed on the album, is “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (pronounced “mass-a-cree,” not massacre), Guthrie states in the opening line of the song that “This song’s called ‘Alice’s Restaurant’” and that “‘Alice’s Restaurant’… is just the name of the song;” as such, the shortened title is the one most commonly used for the song today.

In an interview for All Things Considered, Guthrie said the song points out that any American citizen who was convicted of a crime, no matter how minor (in his case, it was littering), could avoid being conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War.

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Eric Aasen is KERA’s managing editor. He helps lead the station's news department, including radio and digital reporters, producers and newscasters. He also oversees keranews.org, the station’s news website, and manages the station's digital news projects. He reports and writes stories for the website and contributes pieces to KERA radio. He's discussed breaking news live on various public radio programs, including The Takeaway, Here & Now and Texas Standard, as well as radio and TV programs in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.