Do Kids Still Relate to the Beatles? One Dad Finds Out.

In the age of Radio Disney, does classic rock & roll still speak to children? One very clever dad decided to find out. Will Hodgkinson from the Times Online (UK) wondered if the current round of Beatlemania was being lost on his kids. He bribed them with toffee to participate in a very unscientific focus group where played them Beatles classics to get their thoughts. We have to say it's one of the funniest things we've read in a long, long time! Here's a sampling:

Apart from Rowan, who claims only to know about the beetles in her garden, panel members are vaguely aware of the Beatles. "They look like me so I like them," offers Otto, proud possessor of a mop-top bowl cut.

"They are a rock band from olden times," adds Isabella. "They did lots of songs," says Pearl, somewhat unhelpfully, but then Pearl's musical interests are focused entirely on the soundtrack to Mamma Mia!, so she can be forgiven. Resolving to give the study session a chronological overview, I begin by putting She Loves You on to the record player. "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," sing Lennon and McCartney on their Number One smash from 1963. "No she doesn't," Otto says. "I thought it was quite strange," comments Rowan when the song is over. "It's different from most of the songs I've heard." "I loved it," says Isabella. Why? "I don't really know." After musing for a while, index finger lodged in nostril, Fred concludes: "It's good."