No one is really sure why “juice” is a common slang term for electricity, but it’s a safe bet that it has no connection with the potential of grapefruit to generate current. Juice was used as a metaphor for life-force as far back as the 17th century, but it’s since been adopted by gossip, venture capital, power (influence, electric) and steroids, to name a few. If you’ve got juice, can raise juice, know the juice or are juicing you can claim a little piece of the life-force.
We all know that the right music can bring the juice to practically anything. Rock ‘n Roll was the soundtrack of my teenage years, which just happened to coincide with the Sixties. In 1964, while my friends and I were captivated by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Young brothers – Malcolm, Angus, George and Alex – were busy pursuing musical interests and joining various bands of their own. Bass player Alex, along with a few other musicians, started a London-based group named after Yoko Ono’s book “Grapefruit.” In spite of the juicy name and support from folks like John Lennon and Brian Epstein, they enjoyed only modest, fleeting success.
Musicians come and go, bands band and disband, and eventually Malcolm and Angus ended up playing together. Their sister Margaret felt their band’s high-energy power performances were downright electric, and suggested the name “AC/DC”, after a plaque she had seen on a sewing machine. The music had juice, and high-voltage electricity became the motif that powered them into the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame.
