His most famous work is Alice's Restaurant, a talking blues song that lasts eighteen minutes and twenty seconds (in its original recorded version; Guthrie has been known to spin the story out to forty-five minutes in concert). The song, a bitingly satirical protest against the Vietnam War draft, is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie was called up for a draft examination, and rejected as unfit for military service as a result of a criminal record consisting in its entirety of a single arrest, court appearance, fine and clean-up order for littering. In reality, Guthrie, though a carrier of the genetically inherited disease Huntington's chorea, was classified as fit (1A); however, his draft-lottery number did not come up.
Underground
Arlo Guthrie Lyrics
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There's a river running underground
That roll along the clay
That took my body when I laid it down
And carried it far away
It's too damned dark for you to see
My soul shook free, you can't have me
But you may keep the rest
The waters weep, the sickles reap
My hands are cold with sweat
The eagle screams with frightened wings
The dust does not forget
There's a river running underground
That rolls along the clay
That tempts the sould to the ocean cold
To with the body lay
Arlo Guthrie's song, "Underground," is a dark ballad about death and the afterlife. The lyrics depict a river running underground that carries the singer's body away after death. The singer observes their own death from a detached perspective, stating that it was too dark for anyone to protest when their body was carried away. The singer's soul shakes free from their body, indicating a belief in the afterlife, but tells the river to keep the rest of them. Guthrie imbues these lyrics with a foreboding quality, hinting that the afterlife is not a pleasant place.
Line by Line Meaning
There's a river running underground
There's a hidden river that exists beneath the surface
That roll along the clay
The river flows through the earthy soil
That took my body when I laid it down
The river carried away the singer's physical body when they died
And carried it far away
The river transported the artist's physical remains to an unknown location
It's too damned dark for you to see
The environment surrounding the hidden river is too dark for anyone to observe
So I did not protest
The singer did not resist the river's pull
My soul shook free, you can't have me
The singer's non-physical essence was liberated from their body, and cannot be possessed
But you may keep the rest
The river has ownership of the artist's physical form after death
The waters weep, the sickles reap
The river cries and the tools of death gather the souls of the departed
My hands are cold with sweat
The artist is anxious and fearful
The eagle screams with frightened wings
The majestic bird responds to the distress of the moment with frantic noises and motion
The dust does not forget
Memories of those who have passed linger in the earth
That tempts the soul to the ocean cold
The river allures the singer's innermost being to the chilling sea
To with the body lay
To reunite the non-physical with the physical, and form a final resting place
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: ARLO GUTHRIE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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