Arlo Guthrie Trivia

1. In "The Motorcycle Song", what words does Arlo Guthrie rhyme with "motor-sickle"?

From Quiz Not Another Alice's Restaurant Quiz

Answer: tickle and pickle

"The Motorcycle Song" was on the second side of the "Alice's Restaurant" album and was written in the same 'talking blues' style as the title song. Regarding the rhyme, Arlo explains in the song, "I knew it wasn't the best song I ever wrote but I didn't have time to change it." Time was short because, in the song, he was riding his motorcycle over a cliff at 150 miles an hour.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: two

"Two Thanksgivings ago, that's two years ago on Thanksgiving...." The song is based on a true incident that began in 1965, and the album was released in 1967 on Reprise records.

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: half a mile

"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." "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant" Arlo Guthrie was the eldest son of American folk icon Woody Guthrie. He gave his first public performance at age 13 and was a favourite at the Woodstock Festival.

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" Part One

Answer: Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie was born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York in 1947. He is the eldest son of Woody and Marjorie Guthrie.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant

Answer: 2 years

The incident happened two years before the record came out describing the the whole affair and a movie was released two years after the release of the recording.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: Fasha

Alice and Ray lived with their dog Fasha. Woody was Arlo's dad's name. He was also a singer/songwriter and influenced the work of, among others, Bob Dylan. Woody died with Huntington's Disease shortly after the "Alice's Restaurant" album was released.

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" - Story of a Song

Answer: In an old church

As Arlo Guthrie explained in the lyrics: "Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog." Alice Brock and her husband, Ray, ran the "Back Room Rest", which, as Arlo pointed out, was half a mile from the railroad tracks.

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: Thanksgiving

"Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant"

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant

Answer: Stockbridge, MA

The scene of the affair was indeed the tiny town of Stockbridge, MA.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: The railroad tracks

The restaurant is "around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad tracks." Alice and Ray live in the bell tower of the church and Whitehall Street is the place where physical exams for the Army are conducted. (Of course, we all know the significance of the city dump!)

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" - Story of a Song

Answer: Thanksgiving

"Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant," explained Arlo in the lyrics. The events happened in 1965. At that time Guthrie was 18 and, like many other young Americans, was subject to the Draft. It was his claim that an arrest for littering and making a public nuisance was enough for the Army to deem him unfit for active service.

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: Ray

"but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time."

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" Part One

Answer: the church bell tower

Running nearly 30 minutes, the song was too long to be played on the radio. A local Phoenix radio station plays it every Thanksgiving at 10 a.m.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant

Answer: Anything you want

According to the chorus, 'you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant'.

From Quiz Not Another Alice's Restaurant Quiz

Answer: Oklahoma Hills

'Oklahoma Hills' has been selected as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. A Western Swing version was a hit for Woody's cousin Jack in 1945.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: A half ton of garbage

The church is actually in Great Barrington, MA and was purchased by Arlo Guthrie in 1991. It was transformed into the Guthrie Center and now hosts a number of cultural and charitable events, including an annual walk to raise funds and awareness for the treatment of Huntington's Disease.

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" - Story of a Song

Answer: Take the garbage to a dump

"And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time. We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump." Coming in at some 18 minutes and 34 seconds, "Alice's Restaurant" was a long song, one of many lengthy works Guthrie wrote. Its anti-draft message struck a chord in America at the time, and the song received a lot of radio airplay.

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: take out the garbage

"We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump. "Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage. "We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down."

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" Part One

Answer: 1000 lbs

The song says "half a ton"; a ton is 2000 lbs, so the total amount of trash was 1000 lbs. Arlo plays many musical instruments, incuding piano, 6 & 12 string guitar and harmonica.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant

Answer: Alice

According to the last chorus, 'you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, exceptin' Alice'.

From Quiz Not Another Alice's Restaurant Quiz

Answer: City Of New Orleans

Oddly, Arlo's only hit record was a song he didn't write. In 1972 he recorded Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans" for his album "Hobo's Lullaby". The single reached number 18 on Billboard's Hot 100 and number 4 on the Easy Listening Chart. Goodman's song about a trip on Illinois Central's Chicago to New Orleans passenger train was also a Number 1 Country hit for Willie Nelson in 1984

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: Implements of destruction

This is one of my absolute favorite phrases in the song! I can only speculate that Arlo, in his mission to end the war in Viet Nam and promote world peace, considered garden tools the only acceptable "implements of destruction." By the way, the VW Microbus was red.

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" - Story of a Song

Answer: Stockbridge, Massachusetts

The events happened in the adjoining towns of Great Barrington (where the restaurant was located), Lee, and Stockbridge, although the crime and trial elements focussed on Stockbridge. "I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it." The three wrong answers all also feature in songs: Portland in Jackson Browne's "Nothing But Time"; Boise in Harry Chapin's "W*O*L*D" and Jackson in Johnny and June Carter Cash's "Jackson".

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: Obie

"That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage." "After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer's station."

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" Part One

Answer: the police found an envelope with the singer's name on it

Arlo is often joined onstage by his son Abe and daughter Sarah Lee.

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant

Answer: A church

Alice lived in a church located near the restaurant. Actually she lived in the bell-tower of the church with her husband Ray and their dog Fasha.

From Quiz Not Another Alice's Restaurant Quiz

Answer: Ernest Tubb

Ernest Tubb introduced 'honky tonk' styling to country music with his 1941 classic "Walking the Floor Over You". 1968 was the year in which LBJ's Vietnam War policies virtually forced him from the presidency. Arlo Guthrie was strongly anti-war, so his tongue was firmly in cheek when he introduced a "Lyndon Johnson campaign song" and launched into Tubb's lyrics: "Yes, I know I've been untrue And I have hurt you through and through But please have mercy on this heart of mine Take me back and try me one more time".

From Quiz Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Answer: They found it closed for Thanksgiving.

There was a chain across the dump and a sign saying "Closed on Thanksgiving". ("With tears in our eyes, we headed off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.") The walk for Huntington's Disease features a route that includes a visit to the city dump.

From Quiz "Alice's Restaurant" - Story of a Song

Answer: William J. Obanhein

"...a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from Officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage." William J. Obanhein, October 19th 1924 to September 11th 1994. was chief of police at Stockbridge for 32 years. He played himself in the 1969 movie version of "Alice Restaurant", in which Arlo Guthrie played himself. They became great friends in succeeding years. The three wrong answers were all fictional sheriffs.

From Quiz You Can Get Anything You Want.....

Answer: red

"So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer's station."

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Last Updated Oct 25 2025 5:49 AM

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