When I was in college, Melanie was my favorite singer. Later, the Grateful Dead and Jethro Tull edged her out, but in college---when I was studying to be a singer myself---I liked songs I could sing myself.
Yeah, she rocked my world. She was so part and parcel of the hippie-fringy-antiwar movement that I find myself gravitating back to her in this renewal of an old national nightmare. I posted 'Lay Down,' which I'd have to call her greatest song, here. I never cared for the other ones most people knew ("Brand New Key," "Look What They've Done to My Song," "Peace Will Come," and "Beautiful People.")
She has a fairly distinguished history for a singer none of my young friends seem to have heard of.
[S]he was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, where delegates greeted her performances with standing ovations. The top television hosts of the time -- Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett -- battled to book her. (After her stunning performance on his show, Sullivan goggled that he had not seen such a "dedicated and responsive audience since Elvis Presley.")
Accolades rolled in, from critics ("Melanie's cult has long been famous, but it's a cult that's responding to something genuine and powerful -- which is maybe another way of saying that this writer counts himself as part of the cult too," wrote John Rockwell in The New York Times) as well as peers ("Melanie," insisted jazz piano virtuoso Roger Kellaway, "is extraordinary to the point that she could be sitting in front of us in this room and sing something like 'Momma Momma' right to us, and it would just go right through your entire being.")
In the years that followed Melanie continued to record, continued to tour. UNICEF made her its spokesperson; Jimi Hendrix's father introduced her to the multitude assembled for the twentieth anniversary of Woodstock. Her records continued to sell -- more than eighty million to date. She's had her songs covered by singers as diverse as Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray. She's raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant, written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane…
She has, in short, lived a rare life. But all of it was just a prelude to what's about to come. (official website)
Just hearing these old songs causes a resurgence and unspooling of vague daydreams from my younger days. I didn't know what they meant then and I don't know now. Whatever they were about, they didn't come to pass as I expected. But I still have hope.
And I feel like Melanie's time is coming again, if it hasn't already. Will we see a renaissance of the antiwar movement? Will the kids out there unplug long enough to resist? Let's make the present different again.
Lay Down (the video with the Edwin Hawkins singers is linked above)
Love to Lose Again (though I preferred the faster version on my old, lost LP)
Carolina in My Mind
Any Guy
My favorite Melanie song isn't well known. It's a very somber, very downbeat, but it's great and profound poetry, including the whole sense of being swept away, brought down, moved and transported against one's wish or will. I hadn't heard it in 30 years, actually, but seeing these videos inspired me to check to see if I could find my old favorites anywhere (I've hopelessly searched for my lost vinyl versions of "Madrugada" and "Gather Me," my two favorites). And there they were---in downloadable form. So I was able to hear "Railroad", "Center of the Circle," "Maybe Not for a Lifetime," "The Actress," "I am being Guided," "I Wish I was a Farmer," and "Love to Lose Again" again. And yeah, I got a bit teary.
You can download her original albums here.
Railroad, where you gonna take me now
Been singin' the low notes - want to get up
But he low notes bring me down
The low notes bring me down
Airplane where we gonna go today
I never want to go where you take me
But, you always get your way
You always get your way
Write it down now
Write a song about my friend
She did away with herself
To a rock and roll band
Da da da da da da da da da da
I got Satan's cat
And I got God's big dog too
I got love from a lot of the world
But I don't get love from you, no
I got a lot from the bottom of the world
But I didn't get a thing from you,
No, I don't get a thing from you.
Write it down, now
Write a song about my friends
Who did away with themselves
To the tune of a rockin' band
And...da da da da da da da da da
Railroad where you gonna take them now
They been singin' the low notes
Wanted to get up
The low notes brought 'em down
The low notes brought 'em down
Oh, God, the low notes brought 'em down
Write it down now
Write a song about my friends
Who did away with themselves
To a rock and roll band
Da da da da da da da da da
Comments