This morning Sir Monkeypants put on a music mix over breakfast, as he often does. One of the songs he selected in this morning’s playlist was Be My Yoko Ono by the Barenaked Ladies. It’s a sassy song about how they don’t think Yoko should be blamed for the Beatles breakup.

Captain Jelly Belly asked me what the song was about, as he often does, so I started to explain about this band called The Beatles. The kids actually know of The Beatles, because songs like Yellow Submarine and Here Comes The Sun are regulars in our morning music mixes. I explained how The Beatles were one of the greatest bands ever, but then they broke up, and some people thought that it was Yoko’s fault.

Suddenly, Gal Smiley burst into tears.

She was sad that The Beatles had broken up. Actually, she was more than sad — she was distressed. Beside herself with grief. She wanted to know WHY, WHY did they fight? WHY did they get broken? WHY wouldn’t they make any more music?

I tried to explain that The Beatles had made hundreds of songs before they broke up, and there were many more of their songs left for her to discover and love.

She didn’t care.

I tried to explain that even though they didn’t make music together anymore, they were probably all still friends and got together at Christmas. (I didn’t think it was a very good time to bring up the fact that two of them were deceased.)

She cried even harder.

I tried to explain that once they had broken up, the four of them still made music, good music in fact, and that maybe, just maybe they’d reunite one day.

No dice.

Eventually she was getting so hysterical that Sir Monkeypants took her off by herself and rocked her in our rocking chair and somehow got her to stop crying. She calmed down enough to go to school but she was still sniffling and sad as she left.

As Sir Monkeypants said, “I guess we’re all upset about the breakup of The Beatles, but some of us have had more time to get used to the shock.”

Heaven help us if the Barenaked Ladies ever break up!