Happy Thanksgiving, 11W. I appreciate all the participation in these daily music features. I’m thankful to be a part of such an incredible community of Buckeye fans.

There’s been some talk about the Anything Else section of the site getting more bloated than your Uncle Larry after his third slice of pumpkin pie. If these TIMH posts or the Sunday Metal Shops are contributing to that bloat I will gladly Shut ‘Em Down to help keep 11W on mission. Thanks for reading and Go Bucks!

Released in 1967, Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (better known simply as "Alice's Restaurant") has become the most unlikely holiday song in the good old U.S. of A. Not only is the song over 18 minutes long it’s also difficult to sing along to, what little singing that even occurs. It’s also a nakedly political song, as if you needed another guy around the Thanksgiving table spouting rhetoric. Despite all this, millions of Americans listen to this song every fourth Thursday of November.

What makes this all the more incredible is that the song is mostly true. Arlo did get a ticket for littering in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving Day and he was rejected by the Army draft board because of that crime against humanity. There really was a church and Alice really owned a restaurant and there were twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, more or less.

If you have a classic rock station in your town you’ll probably hear this song a few times today. If not, here’s Arlo to keep you company while you’ve got your hand up that turkey’s keister.

For CWRU and the rest of us that like a slice of funk with our mashed potatoes, here’s William DeVaughn with “Be Thankful for What You Got”: