Woody & Arlo Guthrie: True American Patriots

Man came in, said, "All rise!" We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and he sat down. We sat down.

Obie looked at the seein' eye dog . . . then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one . . . and looked at the seein' eye dog . . . and then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each on and began to cry.

Because Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothin' he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage... in the snow.

But that's not what I'm here to tell you about.

I'm here to talk about the draft.

And with that segue, Arlo took us all from a comical story about rural police activity to something much more sinister and menacing, the draft. When Alice's Restaurant came out, the draft was still in full force. Everyone had to register and serve. Obviously, those who could pay for deferments, did so. Those whose family connections were high enough or specific enough were allowed to skate. But it wasn't until 1971 when a United States Supreme Court decision broadened U.S. rules beyond religious belief as grounds for conscientious objection. In Arlo's day, either you were wealthy, or you served. Thus, his next tirade about being inducted into the army was one borne of desperation and fear. Arlo was looking for any method of getting out of the draft. Here's his story on it:

"I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in, sat down (got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning, 'cause I wanted to look like the All-American Kid from New York City. I wanted to feel like . . . I wanted to be the All-American Kid from New York), and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.

And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper that said: "Kid, see the psychiatrist in room 604."

I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna kill! I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I mean: Kill. Kill!"

And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin' "KILL! KILL!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down, yellin', "KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!" and the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy". Didn't feel too good about it. "

Alice's Restaurant was an instant anthem for all of us in the 60s. It exposed the stupidities of local police activity as well as the absurdities of our military. When the movie came out, it only reinforced our understanding that what Arlo was lamenting was indeed the reality we faced in America in the late 1960s. The war in Vietnam was destroying us from within and we were being told that we were either anti-Communist or anti-American. Every where there were bumper stickers proudly proclaiming, "America, love it or leave it." Much like in today's America, we were given a black or white scenario whereby we were supposed to either blindly follow our leadership regardless of the path chosen, or we were to renounce our heritage. Dissent was not an option. Alice's Restaurant, and other great songs by Arlo, showed us the idiocy of such thinking and the absurdity of its manifestations.

 1  |  2  |  3