Nice Radio Four documentary about Alice's Restaurant by one of my favourite people, Ian McMillan. Apart from a sweet meeting with Alice herself and a colleague of the police officer who arrested Arlo Guthrie for littering, the programme showed how this 18-minute anti-Vietnam War, talking blues song is now a children's favourite.
This came as no surprise to us. We used to play it to the children on long car journeys. I remember once a four-year-old piping up from the back seat: 'What's a father-raper?' We always tried to answer the childrens' questions honestly, but I think it was the hardest question I've ever been asked. First I had to explain what sex was, and then things got really sticky.
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