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Littering conviction got Arlo Guthrie out of war draft

Arlo Guthrie
Singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie performed at The GRAMMY Museum on April 9, 2012, in Los Angeles.
Michael Buckner | Getty Images 2012

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Today's Morning Edition music is from "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the real-life incident that inspired the song, Guthrie is on a tour that comes to the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Catherine University on Sunday.

The 18-minute song tells the story of how he got out of being drafted during the Vietnam War because of a conviction for littering.

The littering charge came after Guthrie and a friend tried to unload a half-ton of garbage in a municipal dump on Thanksgiving Day in 1965.