Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where “you can get anything you want” in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83, according to The NY Times.
Viki Merrick, a longtime friend, said she died in a hospice from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Ever since Guthrie released the song, officially called “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” in 1967, it has been a staple of classic-rock stations every late November, not to mention car trip singalongs on the way to visit family for Thanksgiving dinner.
Brock’s restaurant, the Back Room, does not feature much in the song itself. Over the course of a little more than 18 minutes, Mr. Guthrie — doing more talking than singing — recounts a visit that he and a friend, Rick Robbins, paid to Ms. Brock and her husband, Ray Brock, for Thanksgiving dinner.
A shaggy-dog story ensues: Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Robbins take trash to the city dump, but, finding it closed, leave it in a ravine instead. The next morning, the police arrest them for littering, and Ms. Brock has to bail them out.
That night she cooks them all a big meal, and the following day they appear in court, where the judge fines them $50. Later, Mr. Guthrie is ordered to an Army induction center, where he is able to avoid the draft because of his criminal record.
Over the last decade, Ms. Brock struggled with financial and health issues, and a friend set up a GoFundMe site for her — a situation highlighted in a 2020 feature on the NPR program “Morning Edition.” Fans of the song quickly opened their wallets, and within a few days they had raised more than $170,000.
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