This 1971 folk song that was written in 15 minutes is still a big hit 55 years later – do you remember it?

Melanie was born “Melanie Anne Safka” in New York in 1947. She and her sister, Stephanie, grew up in Queens before moving to the suburbs of New Jersey. When Melanie was a teen, she ran away to California, but returned to graduate in 1964.

When she started her career, the singer dropped the rest of her name to go by her signature moniker “Melanie.” She started performing at a coffee house in her hometown before studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and quickly found success as a folk singer.

In 1969, Melanie was one of only three solo female artists who performed at the Woodstock festival. She went on to perform at festivals across the world, including the first Glastonbury Festival in 1971.

When she was still living in New Jersey, Melanie wrote what would become her signature hit in just 15 minutes. After she broke a fast with a McDonald’s meal, Melanie wrote “Brand New Key. Her husband, producer Peter Schekeryk, was excited by the tune and encouraged her to keep working at it.

“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,” the singer told The Tennessean in July 2021. “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!'”

In 1971, Melanie released her album Gather Me, which featured “Brand New Key.” The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard hot 100 and remained there for three consecutive weeks. In “Brand New Key,” Melanie sings about riding a bicycle and roller skates, looking for love. The song was banned from some radio stations because of the sexual innuendo in the lyrics.

“I was remembering roller skating,” she told the singer Michael Johnathon in 2004 about writing the hit song. “And I remembered the scent of Astoria, Queens, where I grew up. And I was remembering roller skating and the key that, you know, tightened the skates so you wouldn’t fall and – which I often did.”

“Brand New Key” kept Melanie incredibly successful. It was featured in the 1997 film Boogie Nights and has been used in several key scenes across TV, including in Family Guy, Kids in the Hall, and Lanterns.

After her big hit, Melanie continued working in the music industry. She wrote music for the musical, Ace of Diamonds, and won an Emmy Award for writing the lyrics to the theme song for the television series Beauty and the Beast, all while continuing to release her own music too.

In 1968, a few years before she released “Brand New Key,” Melanie married Peter Schekeryk. The couple went on to have three children, daughters Leilah and Jeordie, and son Beau-Jarred. Throughout her life, Melanie lived in Nashville and loved creating music.

On January 23, 2024, she died at the age of 76. While her children did not share the cause of death, they wrote in a Facebook post at the time: “This is the hardest post for us to write, and there are so many things we want to say, first, and there’s no easy way except to say it… Mom passed, peacefully, out of this world and into the next.”