Think Big

Think Big for the Millennium

I’ve always been crafting. Always making stuff. I loved tinkering with electronics.

The Day I Wired My First Hi-Fi

When I was about eight, my mum and dad bought a three-disc changing Sony hi-fi. For some reason, they didn’t set it up right away, but I didn’t want to wait to listen to my new Oasis – Roll With It single. Everything had been taken out of the box, so I just started plugging things in and matching up cables. To be fair, there were only about four: the power plug, the antenna, and the speakers.

I switched it on, pressed a few buttons, and plonked in the CD.

To my mum’s surprise, she walked in to find me rocking out to the Gallagher brothers, with my dad commenting in the background, “They’re just a rip-off of The Beatles.”

Learning to Say “I Can Do That”

Fast forward three years to 1999. My dad had passed away, and my mum was doing a great job of throwing me into every activity she could find. That got me into the habit of always thinking, I can do that.

A Millennium Song Competition Appears

Then, in school music class, a competition was announced. We could submit a song for the millennium to some kind of organisation. I do not remember which. We didn’t win. Some choir did. But still, I rallied three unlikely troops from school and said, “Come to mine and we’ll record a song.”

That felt obvious to me, probably because my dad had been recording music with me from a young age on an old reel-to-reel, passing me the mic while he played guitar. I don’t remember the exact details of my lyrical wizardry at the time, but I do remember trying to rhyme something about Sonic the Hedgehog collecting all those gold rings.

So that sets the scene.

Building a Recording Setup From Scraps

I wrote a song, invited three friends over, managed to re-wire two broken old mics, split them into a single mic input, and recorded a track.

And oh my, it was bad.

At its core, the lyrics were exactly what you would expect from a bunch of pre-teens. None of us had any real singing experience, and it was completely a cappella.

Still, we gave it our best shot.

Performing It in Front of the Entire School

It was played in front of the whole school. We actually sang it live at a school assembly as well. LOL. Those poor teachers.

It didn’t go anywhere after that, but I still remember it clearly, along with an early sense of standards creeping in.

The Missed “BIG”

Christian completely mistimed the last lyric. The ending went something like:

“Think big for the millennium. Soooooo. THINK BIG.”

Then, a full second later, Christian shouted, “BIG.”

He’d missed the final, deal-sealing lyric.

I remember being so annoyed.

Anyway, I’ve let that go now.

I promise.