The banned song that went to number one in 1971
When you think about it, it’s pretty ironic that some people could be so racist, sexist, and bigoted back in years gone by, like 1971. But alluding to sex in a song? Lord above, what a mortal sin!
It’s also just plainly a double standard when you think about the fact that a good portion of the music canon is focused on that subject in one way or another, albeit with certain cuts being a bit more on the nose about it. Yet there’s also an argument to be heard about audiences simply taking things too far, and finding indecency in places where it really didn’t exist.
Melanie, the mononymous American singer of 1970s folk fame, would have argued that she was a victim of the latter set of circumstances. Indeed, when she released her 1971 song ‘Brand New Key’, and it became a global hit, she thought that should have been the only success story. But the masses had other ideas, and it was up to her to defend her innocence.
As the song opens with “I rode my bicycle past your window last night/ I roller-skated to your door at daylight/ It almost seems like you’re avoiding me/ I’m okay alone, but you got something I need,” it seems fairly romantically innocuous. So far, you could get on board with Melanie’s protestations that this really was a song just about a girl riding roller skates.
But then you get to the chorus, where she sings, “Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates/ You got a brand new key/ I think that we should get together/ Try ’em out and see,” and things get a little murkier. Traversing an unknown landscape of innuendos and euphemisms is dangerous at the best of times, but in 1971, it was just a bridge too far.
What was the result of ‘Brand New Key’ being banned in 1971?
People were clearly so prudish back then that they were totally aghast by even the mere suggestion of something going just slightly beyond the concrete platonic boundaries. As such, despite various other monstrosities of the era still being played freely, ‘Brand New Key’ was banned by a number of different radio stations for its supposedly sexual lyrics.
But the more Melanie pleaded her innocence, the more the masses seemingly became drawn in by the height of the scandal. As such, even without the usual airplay hype that would normally go hand-in-hand with hits, particularly in those days, the folk singer’s hit song managed to climb its way to the top of the charts.
It’s only been with the safety cushion of many decades passing, as well as societal perceptions changing, that Melanie was able to admit some semblance of the truth. “It had all kinds of meanings,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I’m gonna say, subconsciously, there could have been some sort of Freudian thing. I was just remembering roller skating and learning the apparatus.”
There was undoubtedly a glimmer of mischief in her eye throughout all this, and it was testament to not only a master storyteller but a very sharp mind that she kept up the ruse for all that time. Some things are meant to stay between the sheets, but when it comes to music, it often feels like not everybody wanted to know.
