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This article analyzes Arlo Guthrie's protest song to explore how autobiographical forms challenge official histories.
This article considers Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 protest anthem “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” within the rubric of autobiography, drawing on theories of the genre from scholars such as Philippe Lejeune and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Through a comparison of the song with the Walker Report, the official historical account of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, I put these theoretical frameworks on autobiography in dialog with discussions on the relationship of power, knowledge, truth, and protest from Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse, arguing that the form of “Alice’s Restaurant” amplifies the subversive lyrical content of the song.
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Zeke Levine (2026) studied this question.
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