MELANIE: STILL ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE By Paul Freeman [April 2014 Interview] Voice of a generation. In the late 60s and early 70s, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the songwriters most often mentioned in that context. But when it came to capturing the purity, innocence, joy, idealism and magic of the era, no singer-songwriter could outshine Melanie. Her glorious voice inspired awe as she sang such self-penned gems as ”Lay Down (Candles In The Rain),” ”Beautiful People,” “Peace Will Come (According To Plan),” “Brand New Key,””The Nickel Song” and “Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma,” as well as a stirring cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.” When she stepped onto the stage at Woodstock, and later at the Isle of Wight, a girl armed only with her acoustic guitar, Melanie Safka was just as electrifying as any rock band. In 1972, Melanie served as an official UNICEF ambassador, choosing to raise money for the organization instead of embarking on a world tour at that point. Yet the disarming performer with the powerful voice achieved international popularity. In 1989, Melanie won an Emmy Award for writing the lyrics to "The First Time I Loved Forever," the theme song for the TV series, “Beauty and the Beast.” She wrote the lyrics and music for “Ace of Diamonds,” a 1983 musical based on the letters of Annie Oakley. More recently, she created the musical “Melanie and the Record Man,” which depicts the love story of Melanie and her late husband, Peter Schekeryk. Today she continues to record and tour. Melanie’s latest album, “Ever Since You Never Heard of Me” brims with gorgeous songs like “Smile,” “Motherhood of Love,” “Ordinary Rain” and “Angel Watching,” all delivered to breathtaking effect, thanks to her exquisite, emotion-filled vocals and sumptuous production by her husband and their son, Beau Jerrod. Their daughters, Leilah and Jeordie, are also gifted singer-songwriters, following in their mother’s noble tradition. Melanie’s music has proven to be timeless. Her songs have been covered by diverse artists, including Mott The Hoople, Ray Charles, Olivia Newton-John, Meredith Brooks, Cher, Dolly Parton, Rasputina, Katharine McPhee, Nina Simone, Sandra Bernhard, Cissy Houston, Nana Mouskouri, Bjork, Dion, Alison Moyet and Miley Cyrus. “Brand New Key” was featured on the soundtrack for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 film “Boogie Nights.” Melanie launches an Australian tour in June. Her band will include her son on guitar. A donation from profits of the tour will be given to Animals Australia. Warm, vulnerable, self-effacing and candid, the magnificent Melanie took time to chat with Pop Culture Classics. POP CULTURE CLASSICS: The new album has wonderful songs and a wonderful sound. MELANIE: It’s the last album that my husband produced. He produced it with my son. And shortly after, he passed away, my husband. We haven’t really done much about getting it out. I just bring it with me to shows. But we’re working on getting more distribution and visibility. [You can order it through her website.] PCC: it must make it that much more special, the fact that it was the final album you worked on with your husband, and also having your son involved. MELANIE: Yeah. It was the first album that Beau worked on with his dad. PCC: Your two daughters are also involved in music? MELANIE: Yeah, they all are. I wanted them to be vets [laughs] or dental technicians, something with predictability, but no, they‘re all in music. Leilah’s a writer and singer. And Jeordie’s out in Arizona. She plays out almost every night. She’s a real road warrior person. And I’m, of course, a road warrior myself. PCC: So you didn’t nudge them in the direction of music. Was it just that they all grew up with music surrounding them. MELANIE: I guess so. They grew up in studios. And they sang background on many a record of mine. I was counting, I have over 47 albums out, of original songs. I have a meeting with ASCAP tomorrow, so I’m going in armed with information. PCC: I read where you said that you’re having more fun making music now than ever before. Is that the case? MELANIE: Yes. Well, that was when my husband was still alive. That’s when I was still having fun. I’m certainly having a lot harder time having fun right now. I’m sort of handling the business of survival and it’s a whole new universe. When I perform, I’m somewhere else. I’m totally okay. Those days in between and all that, has been hellish. PCC: But the music does help you get through all of that? MELANIE: It’s the only reason I’m alive, really [a little chuckle]. PCC: Have you been writing? MELANIE: I have been writing. I think you have to go through things, to have the experience to write. But I personally write when I’m feeling great. I may draw from things that have made me miserable. The actual creation, it can happen out of desperation. But usually, it’s in moments of exuberance. PCC: So how does this new chapter in your life affect the writing? MELANIE: Well, I’ve been writing. I wrote a lot of new songs. In fact, we just released a new single. It’s called “Make It Work For Me.” It’s on my website. PCC: Writing upbeat songs, does that help you cope? MELANIE: I don’t mean to mislead you. I don’t mean, because I’m exuberant, it’s going to necessarily be a happy, upbeat song. I have no intentions, when I start to write. It comes from a deeper place. And it kind of tells me what to do. PCC: The song from the new album, “I Tried To Die Young,” did that come out of finding a new perspective on career? MELANIE: It’s not funny ha-ha. It’s funny peculiar [laughs]. Yeah, I guess so. I just never expected to be an old person [laughs again]. I just woke up one day and said, “Oh, I was busy. I forgot, I got older.” I think people in music tend to live in the moment. So you’re not so much in the take of most mainstream people. So “You need to dress your age” kind of thing doesn’t usually affect musicians and performers much. Or “Act your age’ or any of that stuff. PCC: But that can be a good thing, right? Why should we have to act a certain age? MELANIE: Oh, people do it all the time. But why? Good question. Absolutely. PCC: Are there some more rewarding aspects to making music at this point in your life, as opposed to early on? MELANIE: Well, I think the rewards are that I’m now seeing the value of what I did all my life, as a value to others. I wanted to be in the Peace Corps. When I was a teenager, that was what I wanted. And of course, I didn’t have a lot to offer the Peace Corps, as they didn’t need a lot of folk singers or pop-folk singers or whatever they call my music. I think the last term I heard was mythology rock, which I like the best. It is now in the realm of myths. I mean, Jimi Hendrix, with Woodstock, the connection, it’s myth, it’s mythology. So it’s mythology rock. I like it. I hope it sticks. So, yeah, I can see that I was of service to people. No, I didn’t join the Peace Corps. But I have people telling me all the time how I got them through something or I saved their life or their mother and them had a connection and it brought them closer. Real things. It brought peace or comfort to others. So I get the reward of that. I get to see that. I was painfully shy, all through my most visible celebrity. I was just really, really shy. And it was so hard to deal with most social situations. I was married, which was very unusual, to be married to the same person for 43 years. So that in itself was... I mean, I didn’t hang out in Topanga Canyon [laughs]. I wasn’t a person who hung out. So I missed being one of the in-people for Rolling Stone. You know what I mean? I was not going to be a candidate for that. In fact, they didn’t know where to put me. I was too unnamable, I guess. My first record was a gospel hit with 46 black gospel singers. I’m one little white girl. Nobody ever talked about that. It was like, “Don’t you think this is worth talking about?” They didn’t even mention that I wrote the song. This was a time when there was still segregation. And nobody talked about that. It was like I was pinned as maybe a little bit, the thinking-man’s crumpet, as they called it in England. I was too cute to be taken very ... I mean, you had to be more angular and angstful. I was too cherubic and cute and nobody put the value on the songs. They didn’t even say I wrote the songs mostly. If they were going to imply that I wrote the songs, they would call me “the female Bob Dylan.” They didn’t have the term “singer-songwriter” yet. PCC: So was that a source of frustration? Or were you just happy that the public was connecting with the music? MELANIE: Well, I just felt very misunderstood. Like Rolling Stone, they would position me right next to Bobby Sherman. Where did that come from? It’s crazy! But I was unpredictable with my recordings. I was all over the map. I was so interested in all kinds of music and interested in the sources of pop music, where it was coming from. Not as an intellectual study, but just on an instinctive level. My mother was a jazz singer, so there’s jazz in there. There’s Billie Holiday in there. And then I discovered the chanteuse, Edith Piaf. And I loved Lotte Lenya and Bertolt Brecht. I was investigating all of that. I was sponging it up. And it was coming out in the music. So I would have the gospel hit. And then I would have a song like “Brand New Key”’ or a ballad or “Beautiful People.” And so people didn’t quite know where to put me. And that makes everybody uncomfortable. It makes governments uncomfortable. It makes the media uncomfortable. They like to have something they can say 60 times and have it stick. PCC: Obviously putting yourself into a particular category did not seem worthwhile to you. MELANIE: No, I didn’t do those things. I took a very expensive route [laughs]. And I’m very grateful, as an artist, that I did things, because I got to continue. And it really was because of Peter, my husband, who was the producer of all my records, the first one right up to the last. So it was because of him. He would always tell me, “You don’t know who you are.” He was the exhibitionist and presenter, in the old school style - promote, promote, promote. But he hit brick walls all the time, because of me, because I really couldn’t play the game. PCC: Your mother being a jazz singer, were you attracted to the notion of performing? You said you were shy. MELANIE: I really don’t know why I would ever want to do such a thing, because, again, it’s painful. Even right to this day, it’s very hard for my to go on stage. But I do it. And once I’m up there, I’m totally fine, as if I was born there. My Mom was an influence, I think, in her choice of music, more than her singing style. She sang jazz standards. And I think it was the songs that were the big influence. I didn’t want to sing like my mother [laughs]. That’s a girl and a Mom thing. Girls do not want to be their mothers. PCC: You studied acting. Was that to try to deal with the shyness? MELANIE: Well, no, what happened was, I ran away from home. And my Dad, who was a businessman, very much like the man I married, he had visions of me going to college and having a coming-out party [laughs], which is totally ludicrous to me. But he just envisioned this life for his daughter. I couldn’t see doing anything like that. After high school, I was so finished with any kind of mainstream educational pursuit. I couldn’t even think about it. So we were going to see all these different guidance counselor people to see which college I was going to go to. And I was thinking, “Oh, my God, I can’t go to college. I can’t do this. I’m not going to do this.” And so I finally just ran away from home. It was crazy, crazy that I did such a thing. At 16, you don’t know that you’re killing you’re parents, when you do something like this. But I did. And when he came to get me, my Dad, when they found me - because somebody had to actually come out and get you, you couldn’t just be sent home - we tried to talk about what I wanted to do. And he just could not fathom the idea that I would not go on to higher education. So we came to a conclusion that maybe I would go to an arts school of some kind, music or drama. It turned out, then, the music schools were very, very conservative. You had to already know music theory. I knew nothing. I played by ear. So it wasn’t really a possibility for me to try to go to Julliard or Berklee or something. So I opted for acting school, because it was some kind of a creative outlet. And it wasn’t a college, so I could be in and out, I thought. So I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. And it wasn’t because I wanted to be an actress. It was because it was a compromise with my father. So I went to the Academy and graduated and I would keep reading ads for what they needed. But I was too shy to go to the auditions, until, one day, I saw they needed a girl who played the guitar and sang, to play Barbara Allen in a play called, “Dark of the Moon.” And I went to the audition and went to the wrong office and met Hugo and Luigi [Peretti & Creatore], who had written songs for Elvis. I knew nothing about what this was. And through them, I met Peter Schekeryk. We were instantly together. And that was that... for 40-some odd years. PCC: So it was destiny. MELANIE: Yeah, it seems like it. Strange destiny, I’ll tell you. We were so completely opposite. So completely opposite. That’s a whole story in itself. PCC: And you actually wrote a musical about that story? MELANIE: Yeah, I did. It was called “Melanie and the Record Man.” And we did it up in Rochester, of all places. I didn’t know, Rochester is quite the arts community. It was amazing, really amazing. But going from there to the next step was not well thought-out. And the guy who was producing and directing it did not even take a video. And it was pretty close to the time that my husband had passed away, because I wrote it almost immediately. We were on the road when it happened. And it was sudden. He dropped me off at a Whole Foods. And my son was in one of those Residence Inn hotels and I was going to stock up for the week. I had two shows in the Massachusetts vicinity. And my husband went to upgrade his phone. He was going to pick me up. It just never happened. I got picked up by a police car, telling me that my husband was dead [of a heart attack, at age 74, in 2010] and the shock of this... It was the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know anybody. My son got the call, separate from me. And how he understood it was that we were both dead. So he got to the hospital and was relieved, of course, that I was still around. But it was the most devastating day of our life. Before we left for the road, my husband had given me a leather-bound journal and he said, ‘I really want you to write a book. You have to write your story. You’re a really good writer and you should write you story.’ And I said, “Oh, I always get the order wrong and I’m not good at remembering the details.” He said, “Just write what you remember - in any order possible.” Well, I didn’t write a thing... until the night after he passed away. In that hotel room, I saw the empty leather journal. I opened it and the first thing I wrote was, “Sometimes you don’t know you have a story until it has an end.” And it went from there to the whole story of our crazy relationship. Again, we were so opposite. He was from the Ukraine. He barely got out of school. Didn’t read. Could care less about books [chuckles]. I was an avid reader. We were so completely opposite, it was crazy. But what I was so attracted to was that, first of all, he saw something in me that I suppose I saw in myself, but couldn’t admit. And that, of course, is very attractive, when you’re 18. But the second thing was that he was so unaware and completely could care less about what people thought of him. He was not a poser of any kind. And I always found, in so many American guys, that they were posers. They weren’t authentic. And he was so authentic. This was my driving force - authenticity. Even in my own life. So this was the story of the oddest couple that ever lived. PCC: Is there a possibility that you might mount another production? MELANIE: I definitely want to. It would be a horrible waste, if I didn’t. I’m the narrator and we had in this production, a girl who played the young Melanie and someone who played Peter through all the stages of his life. And I would talk, actually have interaction with the characters, speak with them, from the future. And I used some of the hits just to reinforce who we were talking about, but it wasn’t like a ‘then I wrote’ kind of musicals. PCC: With productions like “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and “Jersey Boys” having such success, it seems like a perfect time. MELANIE: That’s what I think. But getting to the right people and all of that. Again, I don’t have Peter, so just getting it out there is the position I’m in. I’m talking to you, I’m doing fine, right? But just to initiate that? It’s not what I can do. I couldn’t call you cold and say, “Hi, would you like to do an interview with me?” [Laughs] I don’t have that thing. Most people, they just blow me off. You know? PCC: So at the height of the stardom and the attention, how did you deal with that? MELANIE: Well, mostly, I just went where Peter told me to go and performed where I was scheduled to perform. And, with Woodstock, we were in the same office building as Artie Kornfeld and the people who were organizing it. And I just asked if I could be there, because it sounded nice - three days of love and music and peace. And we were going to have crafts. And I could go shopping. I pictured picnic blankets and families and a pastoral setting. I couldn’t even imagine what was to come. And then, I went to England, because I was asked to write a film score. And I was very happy to think that my life would go in that direction and I would be behind the scenes and I wouldn’t have to be out there, putting myself up on the stage, as a target [laughs]. But I was there for quite a while in England. In fact, we even rented a flat. When Woodstock was about to happen, I heard nothing in England about it. I was deciding whether maybe I shouldn’t even do this, because the big thing was happening where I was, it seemed. London Symphony Orchestra was in the studio with us. And there was a big buzz. And I was going to Revolution with Rod Stewart performing and I’d get up. People were jamming and stuff. It was a planned, spontaneous thing. That’s what was happening. And during this, I didn’t really think I should go home at that point and do this little thing - the Aquarian Exposition [laughs]. But we decided, yeah, we probably should do it. So I went. My mother picked me up and I was off doing this thing and we hit some traffic. I thought there must be an accident ahead. No cell phones. No instant communication. I did have a number and finally got a hold of somebody and they said, “Oh, no, no, it’s not there. Go here.” And I’m thinking, “Oh, my God, all this traffic has something to do with this thing I’m about to do, which is about 80 miles away!” [Laughs] “This is really frightening. How could this be possible?” And I finally get there and it’s a little motel in upstate New York. But there’s media trucks from one end of the parking lot to the other. And in the lobby is Janis Joplin, surrounded by microphones, slugging Southern Comfort, answering questions. And then Sly Stone walked by. I had never met famous people. I’d never sung for more than 500 people in my whole life. And here I was, going to be doing this mega-thing. Then they told me to go to the helicopter. “Helicopter? Why can’t I go by car like everybody else? I don’t want to go in a helicopter.” I was running towards the helicopter with my mother and right before I got in, they said, “Who’s she?” “Mom.” “No, no moms, just bands and managers.” And I didn’t even have the sense to say, “Oh, she’s my bass player!” But I just didn’t think. So I said goodbye to my mother. I get in a helicopter, by myself, and I get carted off to this field. And I look down and I see this mass of colored stuff. And I said, “What is that?” And the pilot said, “People.” “No, no, all the stuff down there.” And he says, “That’s people.” “People? And where’s the stage?” And he points to this football stadium-sized thing. [Laughs] I’d never seen a stage like that. I’m thinking, “I can’t do this. They’ll throw tomatoes at me. I’m one person with a guitar.” And I wasn’t even that good at guitar. I strummed real hard. I had a lot of intention. But I wasn’t a guitarist or anything. So I thought, “This is not even a possibility.” So I get led to this little tent, which, looking back, I sense there was an upper echelon tent with, I guess they had amenities. And then they had the lower echelon tents. And Tim Hardin was in one. And I was in another. Joan Baez was in the upper echelon tent. But anyway, I’m in this little tent with a dirt floor and box and that’s where I spent my entire day. And every once in a while, someone would come in and say, ‘You’re on next.” And then would say, “Never mind.” It went on like this until night. And Ravi Shankar came on and it had started to rain. And he made some inspirational speech about the Hog Farm passing out candles. And I’m thinking, “Everybody’s going to go home and I’ll be safe. And I’ll go back to my life as it was, go back to the studio in England and write songs. And I’ll never have to... “ And right in the middle of this reverie, I was told, I’m on next. And this is right after the candle-lighting has started, which has linked me with the lighting of things at concerts forever and ever. When people would come to my shows, after Woodstock, they would bring candles or lighters or something, to show they were there. But then, when I wrote “Candles In The Rain,” it was all over. That was like the thing to do at a Melanie concert. [Laughs] It was like bringing hangers to “Mommy Dearest.” It was just like the thing you do So it just became concert behavior. PCC: After thinking it was going to be like a little family picnic and then having to walk out in front of that massive gathering, how did you manage to get on the stage and force yourself to sing? MELANIE: Really! It was like I was walking to my certain doom. And I had an out-of-body experience. I absolutely left my body. And I was completely straight. I wasn’t stoned or drunk or anything, because I was too afraid. I was a purist also. I was a vegetarian. And I would never take smoke into these lungs. I mean, I wouldn’t think of trying to alter myself to get on stage. I always felt so guilty, because it was so what people did. “Do you want to smoke this?” “No, no, I have a headache.” [Laughs]. I’d always wheedle out of something. But I had an out of body experience. I left my body. I watched myself perform part of “Beautiful People,” I guess. I hovered above. It was all silent. And, at one point, I guess I might have felt okay to come back. And again, I was an unknown person. So I went on that stage an unknown person and I really came off a celebrity. PCC: What about “Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)”? Did that just come to you after that experience? MELANIE: Yeah, I left the field with the chorus in my head. They were having these lie-ins to protest the war. Sit-ins were one thing, but the lie-in was another. I did a bunch of those. I was just thinking of that, when the chorus came to me. And I was on the same record label as The Edwin Hawkins Singers. And I just pictured this big, gospel choir doing the main anthem part. And Peter made that happen. We got together and they were rehearsing in Oakland, California, in a school gymnasium. I had talked to Edwin Hawkins about this and he wasn’t thrilled, because he didn’t do anything without the mention of Jesus or the Lord or God or something. And he said, “Is God in there?” And I said, “Well, yeah,” [laughs], “But figuratively.” So anyway, I went out to Oakland while they were rehearsing. I was so shy. And they were up there on the stage and Edwin Hawkins was looking at me like, “Yeah, sure.” [Laughs]. And I’ve got my little guitar. And I’m strumming for all my life. “Lay down, lay down.” And by the time I finished the second chorus, they were singing it with me. PCC: It’s such a moving song and record. You mention that you don’t try to force the songs. Do you think about wanting to uplift and create a sense of community through your music? MELANIE: I love the idea of it, but I don’t start out saying, “I’d like to uplift, so I’m going to write this.” It just sort of happens. I think I’m a real Aquarian. I’m the same sign as Richie Havens. And I think we’re questers and humanitarian people-people. PCC: “Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma,” what sparked that? MELANIE: It was studio experience. Again, my husband and I were always at odds, because we were so different. And he was the producer. And he was always hearing the hit in the song. And I didn’t necessarily see it that way. I would see it as the true embellishment, true to the spirit of the thing I’d worked on. And right in there, there would be a riff. And I was at a disadvantage, because I didn’t come from a musically trained place. I couldn’t tell them what chord it was or tell them what to play where, except to hum it. So I would try to get my point across, but mostly Peter got his across first. I mean, we probably would never have heard of “Brand New Key,” if it wasn’t for Peter, because I heard it as a Cajun swamp thing, kind of like Leon Redbone might have done it. But Peter heard it and said “This is a hit!” And I said, “Oh, no, not that. I’ll be doomed to be cute for the rest of my life.” PCC: But it is so cute and so clever. It seems incomprehensible that it became controversial and was banned by some radio stations. MELANIE: Well, it was the key. They said, “It’s innuendo.” The key - it could have been a drug song. A key is a kilo. That had never occurred to me. It was just a recollection of me roller skating, when I was little. I went to one of those early morning flea markets. I had been on a fast, like total, 27 days on nothing but water. And it was shortly after I broke the fast and my fasting guru told me what my perfect diet should be, because I was always getting sick as a vegetarian. He said,“Really, maybe you’re not the right blood type for a vegetarian.” I didn’t know anything about that. But it appalled me, because I was such a militant vegetarian, the obnoxious kind. I would go to Thanksgiving dinner and say, “I’m not eating carcass.” PCC: So are you now a vegetarian? MELANIE: No, no. I didn't do really well as a vegetarian. I tried everything. I was a fruitarian for a while, only ate fruit. I was a lacto-ovo [laughs]. I was a vegan. I ate fish. Anyway, Dr. Bernard Jensen, who was the fasting guru, told me that after this fast, that what my perfect diet was would probably just come to me, because I was so cleansed and in touch with my body. And so, I was coming home from this flea market - this was back in New Jersey, after I had come back from Escondido, where I did the fast - and I came by a McDonald’s, I smelled this incredible scent of something. And it reminded of I don’t know what - whale, rancid oil or something. And I said, “I have to go there and I have to eat this.” [Laughs] And this is after being a vegetarian and fasting for 27 days. I got the whole works. I did the whole thing. “I want everything. I want the fries. I want the fiberglass milkshake. And I want the burger.” And I’d no sooner finished that last bite of burger, when this idea came to me. And it was really this whole remembering of roller skating and my Dad holding the back of the bike and saying, “Yeah, I’m holding on! I’m holding on!” And I hear this voice getting fainter and fainter behind me [Laughs]. He’s not holding me anymore. Of course, you’re down, as soon as you know. So it was all coming from that. And it just came out in the car. I had a little Hopf guitar and I wrote it on that. PCC: The fact that you were able to not only write hits, but songs that struck such a responsive chord, did it surprise how much of a universal appeal they had? MELANIE: You know, I probably didn’t think a whole lot about it. I was having so many problems just being out there in public. It surprised me a great deal. I could not fathom why people would gather in large numbers. And that’s probably why I was so terrified, because I thought, “What can I possibly be offering?” And I suppose, too, it has to do with, I never thought of myself as a writer at all. I just did songs that came out of me, for me. And so, it didn’t really hit me that I was a writer until Ray Charles sang, “Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma.” And he actually had a an R&B hit with “Look What They’ve Done.” And that’s when I thought, “I wrote that song! Wow!” And the New Seekers actually had a hit record with it, but I still didn’t think of myself as a writer, because they did it exactly like me. You know? But Ray Charles did it like Ray Charles, so I was like, “Wow! I wrote that! I’m a writer!”[Laughs] So it was really not till then that it hit me. And then he and Barbra Streisand did it on TV. Barbra Streisand sang my song! PCC: There have been a lot of interesting covers of your songs. Is there often a sense of wonder? Does it sometimes take a while to get used to the interpretation? MELANIE: I love it. I just love hearing someone take a song, my song, and make it their own. That’s the wonderful part, having somebody really interpret it and then give it their meaning. That’s one of the big perks, really. PCC: What about you doing a cover of The Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday”? That didn’t necessarily seem like a natural marriage of styles. Yet it turned out to be a fantastic track. MELANIE: That was another thing. I hardly ever sang other people’s songs. Once in a while, there would be a song, where I would hear it and go, “Gosh, I wish I had written that,” because it was so me - whatever that means. So I would want to sing it. And it was kind of crazy, because they had just come out with it. And they were The Rolling Stones. They were pretty big! [Laughs]. But I don’t know. I didn’t even think of that. I just thought, “That’s me.” I didn’t have the Rolling Stones finger chord book or anything [laughs]. I just heard it. And I played approximate to how they had it. And so many musicians would try to get me to fix it. And I said, No, no no, I don’t hear it that way.” [Laughs] I have a picture of Mick Jagger wearing a button that says, “Hear Melanie’s ‘Ruby Tuesday’ Any Day.” It was a big button, not a little button. A big ol’ button. A monster-sized button. PCC: What do you think was the real magic of that era, the late 60s, early 70s? MELANIE: Well, I think, for a short period of time, there was a near Renaissance on Earth. It felt like people, humanity, was winning. And before meddling started happening and then it became political. There was nothing very political. There were political types that were infiltrating, but the impetus was a spiritual one. And I really think that they touched on that, in a beautiful way, in that movie “Forrest Gump.” If you watch that movie, there’s this part where the girl who has this idealistic view of the world and how it was changing, she was more the way it really was. Then there were these political types. And I always thought of it as an infiltration, a way of manipulating the masses into believing, if you voted for this group or that group, you’ll be more like what the ideal is. I never really felt that those humorless political types were part of that movement of “Hey, we’re all in this together, let’s live a saner life.” That seemed like where it was coming from, a better way of living for everybody. But it wasn’t about left or right or communism or capitalism. That infiltration, that came in later. And nobody likes to talk about that. They like to align the 60s with a party, a Democratic Party. And it wasn’t . Really all political people were highly suspect - right and left. PCC: And still are. MELANIE: Rightly so. PCC: Have you been able to maintain the sense of idealism and optimism over the years? MELANIE: Well, again, fortunately, because of my husband, I was kept in this little life of just creating. And he would do the rest. So I didn’t get to face what we call the real world, until a few years ago. So I’m sort of like a strange person [chuckles] who’s almost like frozen in an ideal. And I really hope you don’t take this to the place where it could be taken, which is Melanie is stuck in a time. I am a believer in mankind. I am a believer that something big and ugly has been controlling and dominating what people do think and say. And it’s changing. And I certainly hope I’m right... or I’ll probably be dead next year. PCC: So this is a time when you could help allay people’s fears and inspire them with what you’re writing now. MELANIE: Yeah, that’s true. I keep writing. But again, I’ m so busy, it’s just hard. I need somebody to take over. PCC: I know you kept recording and performing throughout the years, but did you ever, to some degree, step away to raise the family? MELANIE: No, I never stopped performing. I continued on, performing 100 dates a year, 200 dates a year. Just doing it. But I became very much less visible. You can sing for 365 days a year and still nobody will know, even if you have been a person who’s had four hit records. Because, if you don’t have p.r. happening and you’re not in people’s faces every day, people don’t know. And I didn’t handle my career. My husband did. And I see it as a very under-utilized career, as I look back now. But he did whatever he had to do to keep me able to create and keep that magic happening. PCC: There’s certainly still magic in the music. It must be gratifying, when people come up and tell you how connected they are to your songs. MELANIE: Yeah. It’s amazing. It really is. I was working in January. And if you can be a singer, working in January, in New York, you’re doing okay [Laughs]. PCC: And you’re based in Nashville now. Is that just to be in the heart of the singer-songwriter community? MELANIE: No, my husband was restless. We moved so many times. This was the last move. And I like it here. I have a nice community of people that have really rallied around me, since my husband passed away. I didn’t even know these people. So it’s really heartening to have that community. And I really sense that Nashville is like that. I don’t have a whole lot of musician friends or anything. But just people in the business have come and they’re just good people. So I’m comfortable here. But I didn’t spend a whole lot of time here, during the time that my husband moved us here. We were looking for a house. We never found it. I’m still in a place where we were going to transition from. That’s where I am right now. And I think that’s where I’ll probably stay. But I don’t know. PCC: You’re heading to Australia soon. MELANIE: Yes, Australia for a month. I haven’t been to Australia since 1977. The promoters are promoting it, which is hopeful. It’s hopeful and unusual, actually, because promoters don’t promote anymore. They just open the door. They expect you to ride your own media horse to your own occasion, your social media horse. And if you don’t sell out, they get mad at you. But they don’t do anything to help you do that. It’s bizarre. I enjoyed working with the promoters in that old sense of the grandiose promotion, where they would actually set up publicity stunts. I mean, I was never part of those. But like Neil Bogart, at Buddah Records, he wanted to have - and this was a record company, record companies don’t do anything for the artists anymore - but he wanted to set up a hippie wedding for me and Peter in Central Park. I was appalled. Peter loved the idea [laughs]. He thought that would be absolutely brilliant. And I went, “Are you kidding?! I mean, I have a hard enough time with the press. They paint me to be a bliss ninny. So here I am going to have a hippie wedding in Central Park? No, I don’t think so.” But this was the grand scale publicity stunts where you’d do a concert and Bruno Coquatrix from the Olympia theatre [the music hall’s owner/manager] in Paris would be me posing with Gilbert Becaud and Julien Clerc [French singer-songwriters]. It would be weeks of hype for the show. And, of course, it was sold out for 40 nights. PCC: Now, in the songwriting, is there a greater sense of freedom for you, not having to be concerned about the charts, not having those kinds of expectations? MELANIE: Well, I don’t know. It’s all one with me, songwriting and singing. It’s not like I can really separate it. I’m not sure if I sing because I write songs or I write songs because I sing. So it’s liberating in that I don’t write with people [though she has co-written with her son], so I don’t have anybody expecting any particular thing. And, unfortunately, the songwriting business has become so corporate. I mean, there are people teaching how to write pop songs. And they have a formula. They actually believe that this is true [laughs]. They actually believe that there is a formula. And of course, 80 percent of the time, they are right. But, of course, the biggest hits are always the ones that don’t follow a formula and just come from left field. I don’t know, like, off the top of my head, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” You couldn’t sit in a room with four writers and come up with that. By the way, Miley Cyrus sang “Look What They Done To My Song, Ma.” And I think she continues to do it in her live set. I’ll find out, because I’m going to her show. I’m taking my granddaughters. I hope she does it. That’ll be a thrill. So she’s the latest person who’s covered a Melanie song. Sorry to talk about myself in third person [laughs]. PCC: It is really the songs that are not formulaic that stand the test of time. MELANIE: Yeah... I’m old enough now to be a classic [laughs]. To find out the latest news and tour dates for Melanie, who is indeed a classic artist, visit melaniesafka.com. You’ll find links to her daughters’ music, as well.