talk about a revolution

"the beatles do NOT have good manners," liam stated from the back seat of the car to chris as he drove the kids home the other night. let me interject something here: it is a small miracle that they were listening to the beatles at all. we have had the same six CDs in our car CD player since last december 26, when i removed the christmas music and replaced it with the same six CDs that had been in my car CD player for most of 2008. care to know what's on our children's playlist? we've got sesame street. veggietales. the wiggles. a vacation bible school soundtrack. a little people compilation. and slot #4 has been permanently out of rotation ever since liam tried to cram in a disc upside down (with peanut butter fingerprints all over it, mind you) back in 2005. thankfully, our sorry musical repertoire was destined to change after we spent a weekend at a friend's house in asheville a few weeks back. saturday morning the kids got to try their hands at the xbox "the beatles: rock band" game, and beatlemania hit the family faster than the H1N1 virus swept through most of our preschool. they laughed at "yellow submarine". they danced to "twist and shout". they quickly mastered the chorus of "ob-la-di, ob-la-da". as soon as we returned home, chris burned a greatest-hits-of-the-beatles-for-the-car CD and we chucked that little people "let's go to the beach" disc out the window. which brings me back to liam. why, chris asked him, do sir paul and his friends come across as impolite? what manners are these four esteemed gentlemen lacking? he replied, "they say 'yeah'. that is very rude!" he then closed his eyes (as, apparently, all good rockers do when belting out their songs) and then sang, "she loves you, YES, YES, YES." chris considered explaining how even the most polite songwriters need to take liberties with their lyrics from time to time. but then he realized that by doing that, he might be undermining 5+ years of manners training. so he smiled, nodded in agreement ... and let it be.