"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates/ You've got a brand-new key."
50 years ago,Melanie Safka— who rose to fame simply as "Melanie"— released the irresistibly catchy"Brand New Key," which topped the charts around the world. In a conversation with Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International, Melanie told the unlikely origin story of the song, how she felt about it defining her career, and the shot of confidence it gave to Elton John.
Bart Herbison: “Brand New Key,” one of my favorite songs ever! Melanie, you are going to have to forgive me if I fanboy because I worship you! …People may not realize that when ‘Brand New Key’ came out, it was the subject of a lot of supposition and a lot of innuendo, but I hear you wrote it because you were hungry.
Melanie: It comes out in a lot of songs. I was on a fast and a vegetarian previously. I wasn’t doing well as a vegetarian. I kept getting ill and colds and so I went to a fasting guru, Bernard Jenson. He was in Escondido, California and I was in New Jersey. I flew out and I had a big concert at Carnegie Hall and I couldn’t be sick. I was getting a cold. He said, “Come out and we will put you on a fast.” So I did and was on a fast for 27 days on nothing but distilled water, and it had to be distilled water so you didn’t get any extra minerals or anything. I was seeing God, and I didn’t really want to stop the fast. There are so many different opinions of fasting and so many different weird diet things. Anyways, I was looking for my perfect diet and solution and again, I had been a vegetarian and wasn’t doing well. On the 27th day, he said, “Melanie, I think it’s time to stop the fast.” I said, “No! I am starting to get visions!”
BH: I bet you were! (Laughing)
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Melanie: I had an experience with a mountain lion because we were in Escondido in the hills and I had this actual moment when I was looking at a mountain lion and thinking, ‘Wow! Isn’t he beautiful?
BH: That’s probably why he didn’t attack you, because you didn’t act afraid.
Melanie: Probably. I was just so not afraid. I was cleansed. I went back after Dr. Jenson said that my perfect diet would occur to me. He suggested that I eat meat because my blood type was O. I was like, “What!? Meat? No!” (He said, “At least, maybe once a week, because it will help ground you.”
I stopped the fast gradually by eating partially cooked grated carrot and zucchini. I did this for a few days and then I was on my way to a flea market...I came back with a big bag full of crazy stuff and I was hungry! We were passing something and I smelled this aroma. Dr. Jenson said it would occur to me, that I would know. I looked over and it was a McDonalds. This was the truth!
BH: By the way, McDonalds was pretty new then.Melanie: It was very new. Just that scent of rancid grease, I don’t know what it was, but we pulled in and I got one of those combos and no sooner than had I finished the last bite of burger, that I wrote “Brand New Key.” It just came into my head. I had one of those little practice guitars in the van with me and when my husband, who was a record producer, heard me singing, he said, “What’s that?” And I said, “Oh, some silly song. I’m just playing around.” He said, “No, no--do that part again!” And I did, and he said, “Melanie, that’s a hit!” And I said, “A hit? No! If that’s a hit, I am doomed to be cute for the rest of my life.” And that is exactly what happened!
BH: Well, you know, songs do define you and that aside, I loved your obscure stuff. But we have this song because of a damn hamburger, Melanie (laughs) That’s amazing! It gets controversial. (People think there is) sexual innuendo, like the “lock and key.” Is there anything to that?Melanie: Well, you know what’s really funny--it was banned on radio stations at first, all over America. It was a time where people were reading into things. Paul is dead. All of that stuff with Abbey Road.
BH: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” it’s gotta be about LSD.
Melanie: Yeah, that’s right. It had all kinds of meanings. I’m gonna say, subconsciously, there could have been some sort of Freudian thing. I was just remembering roller skating and learning the apparatus. It was a thing that went onto your skate to tighten it and I remember going down “Suicide Hill” and breaking my front tooth and it was a beautiful tooth and I was so afraid my mom was gonna kill me because she was so proud of my teeth. My dad holding the back of a bicycle with the training wheel raised up. ‘You’re holding, Dad, right? You’re holding?’ I would hear him say, ‘Yeah!’ as he got quieter and quieter.
BH: And maybe that reminded you of hamburgers! (Laughs)
Melanie: And maybe it was just the scent of the grease! I think it was the grease.
BH: Well look, we are all richer for it. Key means kilo. It’s about drugs!”
Melanie: Yeah, that was NOT what I was thinking!
BH: Isn’t this what a great song is supposed to be? It’s supposed to make us feel something and it’s supposed to be personal to us. That is really a back-handed, awesome compliment, Melanie, that people assign different meanings to it.
Melanie: I kind of became a reactionary against that song. It was silly, but I was very young. I didn’t know any better. I had already been battling this beautific image of, ‘Isn’t she every so precious, every bit of Woodstock fluff person?’ And I wanted to be perceived as someone with some social commentary and relevance. I was also one of those people who smiled at the camera. I grew up with my mom having a Brownie camera and every time she pointed it, I had to smile. All those years of training with the Brownie camera pointed at me, I would do that. I wasn’t angular and angstual enough to be taken seriously. I don’t know. I was from New York, not California. I seemed to have made all the wrong choices as to who to connect with somehow. We were at odds with the industry.
BH: “Nobody wants to be pigeonholed and I get that and you did deeper, more introspective songs, but I gotta tell you, I think this is a historic song for all the reasons I said. And I'll tell you what, you should just see these people and go, ‘You should just see my checks!’ It was a global hit and we are richer for it.
Melanie: It’s amazing. People come up to me and say, “When that song comes on, even now, I remember doing this with my mother or father or siblings,” or “I was going through a hard time.” As a matter of fact, Elton John said to me that when he heard that song , he knew it was okay to do a silly-themed song
BH: I think it’s a great song and I want to say this: just from these few minutes we have spent, I feel your energy, Melanie, and it’s love and that’s what we need and that’s what the song is about and I am just delighted to have gotten to spend this time with you.
Melanie: Thank you so much. And it’s the 50th anniversary of that song. Wow!
About the series
In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the "Story Behind the Song" video interview series features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions. For full video interviews with all of our subjects, visit www.tennessean.com/music.
