Songfacts®:

• A Nashville band specializing in "theatrical scamp rock," Fable Cry issued this song as the first single from their second album. Their frontman Zach Ferrin told us the story behind the song:
  
  "'Onion Grin' was inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, and is sung from the point of view of The Big Bad Wolf as it follows his obsession with Red - the girl and the color itself. It is a story everyone has grown up with and knows well. Most songs I write come from original stories, but the advantage in writing one based on something people are already familiar with, is it allows you to skip past covering the plot line and dive straight into exploring new details and perspectives. The stage is already set, the characters are already there - now you can move forward with new ideas. So that is what I did with this song, deciding to write it from the wolf's point of view, following the varying emotions of his infatuation: intrigue, desperation, determination. I think most people have experienced overwhelming attraction to another person and felt insane because of it - and that insanity may grow after being rejected. Well, a normal person gets bummed, tells themselves that the other was missing out on the best thing ever, and eventually moves forward with life. But I wasn't writing a song about a 'normal person,' was I? I was writing a song about a wolf. And, it must be noted, a big and bad wolf - pardon me. With the stage set, and the story moving its inevitable direction, I had a great big bad hungry canine on my hands, and I poured out his feelings onto the pages and held back nothing. The end result was dark and sinister (and just how he'd have liked it)."
• Explaining how this song came together, Ferrin said: "Musically, long before the lyrics come into it, it was a song I had been working on for quite some time. I tend to take a while to finish a song, beginning with a riff or two, full of gusto and inspired and then often just as quickly I forget about it, until eventually coming back to dust it off later and the decide if its worth finishing or not (I'm working on changing this habit - ha) Well, I wanted to work on some new picking techniques so I came up with what would become the chorus to 'Onion Grin.' It started as an exercise, but I liked it so much I decided to try and turn it into something. And (eventually, and finally) I did that!
  
  When the rest of the band got ahold of it, it grew into such a new beast. Scott Fernandez and Rachel Gerlach (bass and drums) brought out the confidence in the groove and then explosive and frantic energy that appears later in the song, while Joshua Dent and Jo Cleary (cello and violin) beautifully brought out the sweet eeriness that makes you feel creepy in love.
  
  Finally, we just needed to capture it all! For this, we chose friend and fellow East Nashvillian, Ford Heacock, of Firebreath Records and with his help he recorded, mixed, and mastered it. We had recorded with him for our fall single, 'Fancy Dancing,' along with being involved with a Holiday compilation album produced by Firebreath Records in which we covered 'Town Meeting' from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Needless to say, we worked well together. He helped capture the dark and creepy vibe that this song insisted on having, as we subtly textured it with knives, penny-picked banjos, and the deeper notes of an abandoned piano. We are very excited to share this twist on a classic folktale, and hope everyone enjoys it, immensely!"