Hi everyone. This is my first post here. I remember listening to "Alice's Restaurant" when my parents and grandparents listened to it when it was released, and how happy that whole album made everyone.

The other day, while listening to the title track, it occurred to me that the song, basically a chorus, sounds exactly like the chorus in the "Pencil Thin Mustache" song by Jimmy Buffett. It's very close to being the same key too. Has Arlo ever addressed this before, or has anyone ever noticed this? Sorry if it has been covered in previous posts, but I'm very curious if anyone else out there noticed this petty little theft from the Parrothead man himself. Thanks.

Hi Len,

I love the song, Pencil Thin Mustache! but it seems to me that Alice came first...although I never noticed any similarity maybe Jimmy Buffet uses the folk process to!

I remember hearing Pete say, that Woody said, when confronted with a similar situation, " He just stole from me-----I steal from everybody".

If you listen to a lot of old time blues, you'll find that the riffs in "Alice's Restaurant" exist elsewhere...not necessarily the whole thing, or exactly the same, but pieces of it are similar.

And Charles, Pete's father said, "plagiarism is basic to all culture".

Yep I there are old blues songs that are similar. I remember when I saw Dan Stevens live in Nags Head, NC that time he did an old blue song that sounded like Alices & then launched into the chorus of Alices. The folk process I guess...

"We all stand on the shoulders of giants"