Bob Wire: Music

In Defense of the Raisin

(Bob Wire)

Ednor C. Therriault

My daughter Speaker plays on a soccer team that's coached by a dentist. He forbade his girls from bringing raisins as a snack, because they're reportedly very bad for your teeth. Well, I was raised believing that dried fruit is one of the healthiest foods you can eat, so I felt compelled to write this rebuttal. The soccer team went on to a winning season.

I work down at the raisin farm
Doin’ them grapes some bodily harm
It’s a big old vineyard but we don’t make no wine
We heat ‘em up on the drying shelves
Till they’re just a shadow of their former selves
Then we box ‘em up and send ‘em on down the line

Chardonnay from Napa plants
Beaujolais from the south of France
A grape’s a grape, far as I’m concerned
Drying ‘em up and shrinking ‘em down
Blacks and goldens and medium browns
There’s nothing about raisins that I haven’t learned

Chorus
Grapes are good, grapes are sweet
I guess there’s worse things that you could eat
So round, so firm, Lord, so fully packed
But I think a grape hasn’t really made it
Till it’s all shrunk up and dehydrated
Into a sweet and wrinkly little snack

In the dried fruit war that’s being fought
You got your plum and your apricot
But the raisin’s king—ask any second grader
From their oatmeal bowl to their brown bag lunch
Kids love raisins and they eat ‘em a bunch
They’re almost as popular as french fried potaters

So listen up, all you raisin haters
You Sunsweet prune eating constipators
It’s time you said hello to my little friend
I make raisins and I make ‘em right
So try a little shriveled up treat tonight
I’m sure you’ll be a raisin lover again