Folk Singers

"Fame has earned me great applause, thanks to our generous people. of course, this fortune brought my financial situation. and the increasing love of the people who did not decline for years. Everything is mutual. I liked it very much, too many listeners, my followers ... I paid my price with my heart, unfortunately. my heart is tired and said that this event comes from the stress of the scene that lasts for 25 years; doctors. And I said goodbye to the stage for 4 years. I gave my heart. I bought a lot but I gave it my heart, sir."

"Three things I hate in life: Ria, lies and ungratefulness."

"Just have a listen to my songs. If you still want to beat me up, you can."

"I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind I'll do it all for you in time And out of all these things I've done I think I love you better now."

"That's you now, hello, ciao. Seems that life is great now. See me lose focus, as I sing to you loud. I can't, no, I won't hush. I'll say the words that make you blush. I'm gonna sing this now. See, I'm true, my songs are where my heart is."

"Give me love, like her Cos lately I've been waking up alone. The pain splatters teardrops on my shirt. I told you I'd let them go."

"I wanna be drunk when I wake up On the right side of the wrong bed. And every excuse I made up Tell you the truth I hate. What didn't kill me, It never made me stronger at all."

"And they say She's in the Class A Team. Stuck in her daydream, Been this way since 18. But lately her face seems Slowly sinking, wasting, Crumbling like pastries. And they scream The worst things in life come free to us. Cos we're just under the upperhand And go mad for a couple of grams. And she don't want to go outside tonight. And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland Or sells love to another man. It's too cold outside For angels to fly; Angels to fly."

"'Cause maybe you're loveable. Maybe you're my snowflake. And your eyes turn from green to gray. And in the winter I'll hold you in a cold place. And you should never cut your hair, 'Cause I love the way you flick it off your shoulder.And you will never know Just how beautiful you are to me. But maybe I'm just in love When you wake me up."

"You were just a Small Bump unborn, in Four months you're brought to life. You might be left with my hair, but you'll have your Mother's eyes. I'll hold your body in my hands be as gentle as I can, but for now you're a scan of my unmade plans. Small bump, four months you are brought to life."

"I'm gonna pick up the pieces, and build a Lego house. When things go wrong we can knock it down."

"I went over to the Sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sitting here on the bench, I mean I'm sitting here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.""

"And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench."

"Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!"

"...And it was about four or five hours later that Alice — Remember Alice? It's a song about Alice."

"If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!"

"Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.""

"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."

"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."

"And they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography."

"And I walked 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 Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy.""

"I'm thinking that somewhere around the world, I remember after this 9/11 event back home, people didn't feel much like playing, singing, people didn't feel like going out. But then I thought you know, that somewhere in the world, somebody's hiding behind a rock or a tree, or a wall, or something, and somebody else has been shooting at them for quite some time. Somebody's dreaming, somebody's hoping that somewhere, somebody's singing. Somebody's smiling, and laughing, and life is good, and it's fun to be a human being, and it's all right. And I thought man we got to keep that spirit going, you know, and so we got back out on the road. But I think of that every time that we play now. It would be nice to go anywhere in the world to go and do these kind of things and have fun and live right and not be worried about stuff like that. That's my hope, that everywhere in the world that will happen soon."

"I froze in time! And I thought "My God......I'm free!""

"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"

"[My mother] said, "Arlo, I was out in the middle of China. And they brought out these school kids, and they started singing us songs, and they started singing 'This Land is Your Land', and I said 'STOP! Stop the song! My husband wrote that song!" She must have drove them nuts! She was driving me nuts about it! It was weeks after she had got back she hadn't slowed down about it one little bit! And I just looked at her and I said, "You know, mom...California.....to the New York Island. What are they singing it for over there anyhow?" She just looked with one of those Mom kind of looks. She said, "Oh Arlo..." She walked away. I was left standing there feeling like my usual self. I knew she was right, but I just didn't know why. After a while though, it come to me. I could see it, just because it said "California to the New York Island", didn't mean it had to go the short way! I could see it going around back! Redwood Forests, Gulf stream waters, around that way! Then the whole world could be singing that song! Except America."

"Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal." I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life."

"We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, "You know what? I know my dad's songs...""

"This song is called "Alice's Restaurant". 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. That's why I called this song "Alice's Restaurant.""

"It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar."

"For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. He's so alone in the world, that he doesn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over."

"Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. "Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious." And I said "Right.""

"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 ours down."

"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 living in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Having all that room, seeing as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time."

"And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go"

"God damn them all! I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold we'd fire no guns -- shed no tears! Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier The last of Barrett's Privateers."

"No matter what you've lost Be it a home, a love, a friend Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again."

"To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men To find there but the road back home again."

"Oh, the year was seventeen seventy-eight (how I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!)"

"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage And make a northwest passage to the sea."

"Race the roaring Fraser to the sea."

"Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones."

"Rise again Rise again That her name not be lost to the knowledge of men."

"When supper time came the old cook came on deck saying "Fellas its too rough to feed ya" When at 7:00 pm the main hatch way caved in he said "Fellas its been good to know ya" The captain wired in, he had water coming in and the big ship and crew was in peril When latter that night when her lights went outta sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?... And all that remains is the faces and names of the wives and the sons and the daughters..."

"Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep I wonder if the years have closed her mind I guess it must be wanderlust or trying to get free From the good old faithful feeling we once knew Carefree highway, let me slip away on you Carefree highway you seen better days.."

"Some say he was a sailor who died away at sea Some say he was a prisoner who never was set free Lost upon the ocean he died there in the mist Dreaming of a kiss Bitter Green they called her walking in the sun Loving everyone that she met Bitter Green they called her waiting in the sun Waiting for someone to take her home"

"Satin rays and coloured days Stark blue horizons Naked limbs and wheat bins, hazy afternoons Voicing, rejoicing the wine cups do bring Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses"

"If you could read my mind, love, What a tale my thoughts could tell. Just like an old time movie, 'Bout a ghost from a wishing well. In a castle dark or a fortress strong, With chains upon my feet."

"There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run And the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real... Oh! The song of the future has been sung All the battles have been won On the mountain tops we stand All the world at our command We have opened up the soil with our teardrops and our toil"

"If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love On this winters night with you"

"And the body of a dead youth Lies stretched upon the ground Upon the filthy pavements No reason can be found Black day in July"