Arlo Guthrie's most famous song was written about a real life incident in his life. There was a real life Alice who ran a restaurant near Stockbridge, MA and there was an incident where Arlo did have to clean up a mess of garbage. He did clean up the mess talked about in his tune.
Regarding his visit to Whitehall Street, less is known from other sources, save that the building still exists in mutilated form. Arlo Guthrie has stated that much of the film "Alice's Restaurant" is based on real events. I can only imagine what he went through at that time in his life.
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Why do I bring this up? Well, I have been listening to his tune on a regular basis while I do my work at the office. The simple pace of the tune distracts me enough from what I'm doing to make doing my job more bearable.
So, if you want to deal with a highly repetitive task, I suggest finding a tune which matches the pace of the work you are doing, and then playing it in the background for a while.
