TLP (our son, the little prince) loves Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.  That’s pretty awesome since he is 8.5 years old.  The problem is that his two favorite songs are Mack the Knife and Cabaret because of the tunes and the instrumentals.  When we looked up the lyrics, it was a little ooky.

First, Mack the Knife doesn’t sound like it will be about wine and roses.  Mack the Knife is based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.  Murder and blood.  And Cabaret involves a prostitute who charges by the hour.

And now my son wants us to purchase the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated.  I draw the line there — he is too young.  But why the heck I am letting him listen to songs about violence and prostitution? 

There is a bright line here, somewhere.