Arlo Guthrie is 68 today. Hard to believe this next November will be the 50th anniversary of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree that inspired his most famous song. Here he is performing an early tune that I have been prone to sing or hum for so long that I totally forgot who wrote and recorded it: “The Motorcycle Song.”

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.