When I was a new parent, I did my utmost to shield my little girl from, well, the world. At least the bleakest bits of it. For example, one morning I was idly listening to NPR while we ate breakfast, and she asked, “Dad, what’s a serial killer?” Agh! I hadn’t even been paying attention. Thankfully, the coffee had already kicked in, and I told her it was someone who reaaallly didn’t like Cheerios. She was appropriately appalled.
Rewind to a few years before our “cereal killer” chat. The area where I most consistently failed to shield her was my music choices. Several of my favorite driving tunes featured spicy (for a three-year-old) lyrics. I would regularly forget about the spiciness both before and immediately after, but would absolutely cringe as the lyrics zipped by (I’m looking at YOU, “Save Me, San Francisco“).
One day as we drove in our old Mazda, Queen’s anthemic “We Will Rock You” came on. While there are no truly spicy lyrics, there were definitely some words she had never heard. I was quite pleased when her toddler brain simply replaced the lyrics with words she knew and understood. Thus she sang along heartily with Freddie Mercury from the back seat: “You got mud on your FACE! Big these GRAPES! (mumble mumble mumble) all over the PLACE! We will, we will ROCK YOU!”
And “Big These Grapes” was born.
Aside from the awesome origin story, the uniqueness of the phrase makes it a great choice for a project name. Nobody had scooped up the domain name expecting easy money, and I’m pleased to report there are no other grape-themed artists with whom I will be confused. You know, probably. Finally, I do have other music projects going and I wanted this one to have its own unique identity. Mission accomplished, I think.
So now you’re informed. If you’ve read this far you truly must have nothing better to do, but I do appreciate your visit! Feel free to drop me a note.