Yeah, but does "Over the River & Through the woods..." specifically mention Thanksgiving? I always took it for a generic winter holiday song. I know there must be other ones out there, but the one, the only Thanksgiving song that comes to my wee mind is "Alice's Restaurant."

Bill in CT [/quote]

The Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat was actually 42 years ago.

Happy 40th Arlo

Enjoy yourself tonight and tomorrow. Carnigie Hall, now don't that beat all.

I found this on the internet. Looks like the 40th anniversary of the fabled events to me.

What happened up in Massachusetts was that Alice and Ray [Brock] lived in a church -- the former Trinity Church on Division Street in Stockbridge -- and were used to inviting people into their home.... Arlo and Rick [Robbins] had been traveling together, Arlo working his way up in folk singing..., and Rick tagging along. So they went up to Alice and Ray's for Thanksgiving 1965....

A number of people, Arlo and Rick included, were members of the family, and so they were not guests in the usual sense. So when Ray woke up the next morning, he said to them, "Let's clean up the church and get all this crap out of here, for God's sake. This place is a mess," and Rick said, "Sure."

So Arlo and Rick swept up and loaded all the crap... into a VW microbus.. and went out to the dump which was closed. So they started driving around, until Arlo remembered a side road in Stockbridge up on Prospect Hill by the Indian Hill Music Camp -- which he went to one summer -- so they drove up there and dumped the garbage.

A little later, the phone rang, and it was Stockbridge police chief William J. Obanhein.... "I found an envelope with the name Brock on it," Chief Obanhein said.... the truth came out, and soon the boys found themselves in Obanhein's police car....

So they went up to Prospect Hill, and Obie took some pictures, and on the back he marked them, "PROSPECT HILL RUBBISH DUMPING FILE UNDER GUTHRIE AND ROBBINS 11/26/65." And took the kids to jail.

Never mind what it says in the song; there was no police brutality, no mistreatment. "I didn't put any handcuffs on them," says Chief Obanhein emphatically, "and I didn't take the toilet seats off, 'cause we don't have any seats. I told the architect who designed the cells you can't have things like that 'cause when people come in here, they're like to rip them off."

Well, Arlo and Rick sat down on this metal cot..., and pretty soon Alice showed up.... She called Obie every name she could think of.... "I told her if she didn't stop, I'd arrest her," Obanhein said, and he would have; so she did stop and handed over the bail money. Then they went over to the town of Lee to the courthouse.

Well, it was an open-and-shut case, anyway. The kids went in, pleaded, "Guilty, Your Honor," were fined $25 each and ordered to retrieve the rubbish....

Then they went all back to the church... and they sort of started to write Alice's Restaurant together.... "We were sitting around after dinner and wrote half the song," Alice recalls, "and the other half, the draft part, Arlo wrote."


Saul Braun, Alice & Ray & Yesterday's Flowers, in Playboy's Music Scene, Chicago, IL, 1972, pp. 122-125.

It was Thanksgiving 1965 - 40 years ago Thanksgiving. If anyone else had written the song that is known as "Alice's Restaurant" with me or in any other way, you can be sure I would have credited them. We were all making up verses to the tune I wrote as we sat around the table at Alice and Ray's kitchen - the one that I used as the chorus is the one I created. Hope that settles any lingering doubts about the song.

adg

Ya know, I got about 48 copies of the song , and I STILL search for it on the radio every Thanksgiving........that might make me a blunderite?

I brought the original CD with me in the car last night, but I still tried to find it on a local station before listening to it on the CD. Only "we" can understand that!

T'was the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house.....Oh wait that's Christmas ....."There's a big fat turkey walking down the road!" (singing in bass) Shame on me I shouldn't be talking about myself

Found two different lyric variations, one Thanksgiving, one Christmas, apparently by the same author.

Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880)
The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day

1Over the river, and through the wood,
2 To grandfather's house we go;
3 The horse knows the way,
4 To carry the sleigh,
5 Through the white and drifted snow.

6Over the river, and through the wood,
7 To grandfather's house away!
8 We would not stop
9 For doll or top,
10 For 't is Thanksgiving day.

11Over the river, and through the wood,
12 Oh, how the wind does blow!
13 It stings the toes,
14 And bites the nose,
15 As over the ground we go.

16Over the river, and through the wood,
17 With a clear blue winter sky,
18 The dogs do bark,
19 And children hark,
20 As we go jingling by.

21Over the river, and through the wood,
22 To have a first-rate play --
23 Hear the bells ring
24 Ting a ling ding,
25 Hurra for Thanksgiving day!

26Over the river, and through the wood --
27 No matter for winds that blow;
28 Or if we get
29 The sleigh upset,
30 Into a bank of snow.

31Over the river, and through the wood,
32 To see little John and Ann;
33 We will kiss them all,
34 And play snow-ball,
35 And stay as long as we can.

36Over the river, and through the wood,
37 Trot fast, my dapple grey!
38 Spring over the ground,
39 Like a hunting hound,
40 For 't is Thanksgiving day!

41Over the river, and through the wood,
42 And straight through the barn-yard gate;
43 We seem to go
44 Extremely slow,
45 It is so hard to wait.

46Over the river, and through the wood,
47 Old Jowler hears our bells;
48 He shakes his pow,
49 With a loud bow wow,
50 And thus the news he tells.

51Over the river, and through the wood --
52 When grandmother sees us come,
53 She will say, Oh dear,
54 The children are here,
55 Bring a pie for every one.

56Over the river, and through the wood --
57 Now grandmother's cap I spy!
58 Hurra for the fun!
59 Is the pudding done?
60 Hurra for the pumpkin pie!

Notes

48] pow: head.

Online text copyright © 2003, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: L. Maria Child, Flowers for Children, II (New York: C. S. Francis, 1845): 25-28. Facsimile in Yankee Doodle's Literary Sampler of Prose, Poetry, & Pictures Being an Anthology of Diverse Works Published for the Edification and/or Entertainment of Young Readers in America Before 1900, Selected from the Rare Book Collections of the Library of Congress and Introduced by Virginia Haviland and Margaret N. Coughlan (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974): 164-67. Z 1232 H38 1974 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1845
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/28

Rhyme: abccb adeed ...



Over the River and Through the Woods

Written by Lydia Maria Child, author of American Frugal Housewife, The Family Nurse, and others.

1844



Over the River and Through the Woods,
To Grandmother's house we go.
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
Through white and drifted snow.


Over the River and Through the Woods,
Oh, how the wind does blow.
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go.


Over the River and Through the Woods,
To have a full day of play.
Oh, hear the bells ringing ting-a-ling-ling,
For it is Christmas Day.


Over the River and Through the Woods,
Trot fast my dapple gray;
Spring o'er the ground just like a hound,
For this is Christmas Day.


Over the River and Through the Woods,
And straight through the barnyard gate.
It seems that we go so dreadfully slow;
It is so hard to wait.


Over the River and Through the Woods,
Now Grandma's cap I spy.
Hurrah for fun, the pudding's done;
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie.

Arlo ~ I thought it was the 40th anniversary of the Song about a Thanksgiving two years prior?

Or are you just using Creative License to intro the story as a past event?

Either way have a Great Time Tonight and tomorrow, thanks for all the years of Thanksgiving Smiles.

Doesn't anyone count mnths. with 31 days in them anymore???

A Happy Happy Thanksgiving to all my cyberfriends, some whom I've acutally met in person....

And just for memory's sake. We have Arlo to blame.

Tx AG

Respectfully yours / Rb

it's time for the after thanksgiving hill and shire night dance!
everyone, grab a gnome or faerie and race through the pixie dust falls... the dance begins at the tops of the trees!

It was recorded in 67 two years after the actual events took place :)

Thanks for filling in the small pieces of the Big Picture Arlo

It's great to have you as an active part of your Web-Site, gives it that certain feeling of intimacy that can be found at your shows.

Thanks for having us as a part of your extended Family, the Holidays wouldn't be the same without you.

Don't forget to have fun tonight, and will a recording be available any time soon?

WOW!!!

..... I thought the original was on black vinyl, or 8-track tape.

(They had CD's back then)?

*Snickers*

Original, as opposed to Revisited