Melanie, the husky-voiced singer and songwriter who was one of many shock stars of the Woodstock music competition in 1969 and two years later had a No. 1 single with the disarmingly childlike “Model New Key,” died on Tuesday. She was 76.
Her dying was announced on social media by her youngsters, Leilah, Jeordie and Beau Jarred. Neither the trigger nor the placement had been cited.
Melanie, born Melanie Safka in 1947, was solely 22 however already a presence on the New York people scene when she appeared at Woodstock. She was certainly one of solely three girls who carried out unaccompanied on the competition — and, as she later recalled, she was petrified on the considered performing in entrance of a crowd vastly larger than the coffeehouse audiences she was used to.
It began to rain earlier than she took the stage, and she or he would later say that the sight of individuals within the crowd lighting candles impressed her to write down “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” which she recorded with gospel-style backing from the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Released in 1970, it grew to become her first hit, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Sizzling 100.
Her largest hit, “Brand New Key,” charmed listeners with its simplicity however generated controversy — and was stated to have been banned by some radio stations — as a result of some folks heard sexual innuendo in lyrics like “I’ve bought a brand-new pair of curler skates/You’ve bought a brand-new key.” She acknowledged that the phrases could possibly be interpreted that manner, however insisted that this was not her intention.
“‘Model New Key’ I wrote in about quarter-hour one evening,” she informed one interviewer. “I believed it was cute; a form of outdated ’30s tune.
“I assume a key and a lock have all the time been Freudian symbols,” she continued, “and fairly apparent ones at that. There was no deep severe expression behind the music, however folks learn issues into it.”
