People Still Love The Fun And Whimsical Roller Skate Hit 'Brand New Key' By Melanie Safka

Jul 08, 2020 by apost team

Brand New Key is a pop song written by folk singer Melanie, which became a novelty hit in 1971-72. Taken from Melanie's album Gather Me, it was also known as The Rollerskate Song due to its chorus. It was her biggest hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart in December 1971 and January 1972. It reached #1 in Canada and Australia and #4 in the UK charts.

In the song's video, Melanie uses a brand-new pair of rollers to go to a boy's house because the boy had something she needed. She knocks the door persistently, although the boy seemed not to be home. At last, his mother answers Melanie's call and tells her that the boy was seeing another girl. It is at this moment that Melanie realizes that the boy has been evading her.

The key that Melanie talks about in her song is a skate key. During that time, roller skates were built with metallic contraptions that needed a skate key to fit them into the shoes.

The video setting of the guy searching for a boy with a new skate key had plenty of hidden meaning, which was striking since it was set in an innocent setting. However, according to Melanie, the deeper connotation was unintentional, and she wrote the song lyrics in a stream-of-conscious style. According to songfacts.com, it was not something that she was worried about or thought about.

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However, the song has a very rare origin story. Before writing the song lyrics, Melanie went on a 27-day fast, drinking only distilled water. After the completion of the 27-day fast, she consumed transitional foods when she felt the urge to eat fries and hamburgers.

On the way home, she heard a voice guiding her, and that's when she started to write the song's lyrics within 15 minutes.

After she penned the lyrics song, she found out that it would make a nice interlude on her album. Furthermore, the song would also make a lighthearted uniqueness when performing her album.

However, Peter Schekeryk, her husband, had more ideas on how to make the song enticing. After Melanie recorded her song in New York City, Peter added backing vocals to the song, making it super catchy.

Melanie Safka is a well-known folk singer who sang about unity and peace during the Vietnam war. Her popular songs that came to be top charts were Peace Will Come and Lay Down.

However, Melanie was afraid of realizing Brand New Key as a single since that would be the end of her career. Although she had further success with Some Day I Will be a Farmer and Ring The Living BEKK, she became famous because of Brand New Key.

In 1971 December 25, Brand New Key topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed in the first position for three weeks. Before its success, the song was ranked as the ninth song of 1972, and it scored number 4 in the UK singles chart. 

In 1975, Brandan Grace made a version of the song Combine Harvester and went ahead to score No.1 on the Irish singles charts. In 1994, many radio stations played a parody of Brand New Key after the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. The parody contained lyrics from Tonya Harding's point of view and Melanie's song chorus. Besides Melanie's counterculture legacy, she is still famous in pop culture today. Her song is still played on the American Idol and Brand New Key.

What's your favorite Melanie Schekeryk song? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this along!