So.. I'm playing a gig on Friday and need and extra special long song to fill time where I don't have enough songs and thought, ok, I haven't done Alice's Restaurant in oh... four decades, so maybe it's time to dust off my reading skills and do that. It having been a while, I forgot how it goes so I checked the Trusty Web and yeah, there is a transcription of the original from even further back and there is this line:

"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 the PC Plug In I had installed to my brain ever since I did one of my own politically incorrect songs one late evening and was fired for doing it began to ding. Now do I:

1. Stick with tradition since I am told we are traditionalists here and do it as written.
2. Rewrite it and make it something it never was.
3. Mumble.
4. Find another extra special long song and live with my cowardice.

There are these gospel spirituals that if one does the orignal lyrics can start fights. Heck, there are candy wrappers that read at the wrong time to the wrong people start fights. Problem is this room is at the top of a very long steep stairwell and there ain't no escape.

It's a dilemma.

My feelings are use the term they use in reference to themselves - queer. Faggot sounds demeaning. Its also both singular and plural. "They may think they're both queer and they won't take either of 'em."

My 2 cents on that...

Problem is, or not a problem, or is a problem but not THE problem, is they wiill take them. Both. In harmony.

Try the 1996 version on the remade album.

Good idea, Larry. I found the lyrics online and didn't want to write them out by hand like I did all those years ago the last time I performed it. But the solution came to me while rehearsing it: the phrase magically changed to "Two hippies in harmony" and that seemed... perfect. Dilamma solved. The gig I was playing is a room owned by two lady life partners and I really didn't want to offend them. Sweet gals and just hanging on business wise, so a tip gig. Trying to be helpful here.

Yanno, it's hardddd to do that thing end to end. My left hand gets lost and repeats the second half instead of coming around. Oh well... worth trying. Lotsa kids like it and no one does it these days round these parts. I think my version would be tres weird as for some reason, my Southern accent creeps out when I'm reading it as if there some hidden character back there waiting to... creep out.

oh goddamn with the southern accent bit, i grew up with it and thankfully ,ultimately , it in itself didn't amount to sheeit

I've never heard you live (in person) but I've seen and listened to the vids and recordings you've posted. You have a unique style, way of owning what you're doing in a really good way. My 2 cents: a blend of your own concoction based on traditional ADG (or the other way around). And maybe some newer, more relevant stuff tossed in if you're so inclined. Arlo has proven, decade after decade, that "Alice's...." is an organic and (r)evolutionary piece of work. He borrowed the tune, more or less, and found his voice in satire, irony, and some downright slapstick humor. No one will ever replicate Arlo precisely, so IMHO, any attempt at that will fall short. You'll figure it out, and I can't wait to see/hear it!

"Everything about you that is not happy is not you. Being yourself is being lost to the delusions of others." - ADG

Some words change with time so just have a gay oul time and if you do happen to end up 'falling' down and breaking something you can always become a calvinist and proclaim "Praise the Lord! I'm glad that's over."

End of dilemma and beginning of something exciting! You might even say you're just making a gay old song born again but watch out you don't get stoned...

Anyhow you've done it by now and this is just in case they want you back to check out the stairwell?

Without being selective, have a nice day ye all and praise the Lord for making all of us in their image, including Arlo!