Arlo Guthrie-circa 1967... Lyrics from Alice's restaurant.

Posted on: August 17, 2025 at 17:26:13 CT

Came to talk about the draft.
They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I 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, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, 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 o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604."
And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL." And I started jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL, " and
he started jumping up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "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.