Tuesday, September 01, 2009

She remembers 1967 quite well, thank you.

Mum and I took the kids to a restaurant today for a late lunch. We were drinking our Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre and the girls were colouring their placemats, when “I’m a Believer” came on the radio.

“Hey!” Charlotte said, “This song’s from Shrek!”

“Actually, it’s an old song, babe,” I said, “by a band called ‘The Monkees’…or, am I wrong, was it the Beatles, Mum?”

“Nope, the Monkees.”

Charlotte looked skeptical. “’The Monkees’? ‘The Beatles’? Why would anyone name their bands after monkeys and beetles?”

There was a pause as my mum swirled her red wine, then said, dry and worldly-wise, “You had to be there, kid.”

It was perfect. I laughed my head off.

Poor Charlotte. Wait til she sees my Yard Birds album.

6 comments:

lizbon said...

That is indeed perfect. With your mom's permission I may borrow that line and delivery as a rejoinder to a certain young man whenever he's being a certain young idiot.

Unknown said...

Well said. It horrifies me to remember that the first two albums I owned -- on cassette tape, no less -- were Tiffany and a Greatest Hits of the Monkeys thing. I used to bop around my bedroom to the two. Wow. Good times.

Jo said...

Willow knows a lot of Beatles music - when she was a baby I used to sing her lullabized versions of their songs and Christmas songs because they were the only songs I knew all the words to in my head!

Valerie said...

Hey watch it...the Yardbirds was the very first LP I ever purchased with babysitting money.

As it turned out, my 23 yo son likes late 60's early 70's rock better current music, except for Canadian indie

kate said...

I can just hear her saying it, too...

This generation will grow up thinking of animated movies whenever they hear hits from the 70s and 80s. Just like so many of our generation thinks of D*sney whenever we hear certain classical music (think Fantasia).

Gena said...

Oh! She doesn't know the Beatles?!? My heart is just breaking. I'm sure one day my kids will look through my CDs and ask why anyone would name a band Rancid.