Melanie’s “Brand New Key” Lyrics Meaning
If “Brand New Key” were released in more-modern times, the audience would definitely conclude that it is about bedroom fun. Indeed it regained popularity in the 1990s being featured in a movie which, in a lot of ways, was about bedroom intimacy. And symbolically, its storyline is based on the addressee, a romantic interest, having “a brand new key”. The singer likewise has “a brand new pair of roller skates”. And basically, she wants to see if his key fits her skates. And for the record, a skate key is an actual object which was important to the operation of these vehicles back in the day. So the storyline is centered on the singer seeking out the addressee as he ‘has something she needs’.
Melanie talks about “Brand New Key”
Melanie has gone on to state personally that the lyrics aren’t about bumping and grinding. In fact they came to her during sort of like an epiphany which occurred after she broke a month-long fast by eating McDonald’s. That is the smell of the Mickey D’s caused her to have flashbacks to earlier roller-skating experiences. And at the time this happened she was in her early 20s.
However, this does not mean she didn’t notice that the lyrics have a sexual innuendo. Rather it was not her intended purpose to imply such. And in acknowledgement that “Brand New Key” has been interpreted in various ways, she has left it up to the listener to come up with their own understanding of the tune.
In Conclusion
At the end of the day, the actual tale featured in the song seems innocent enough. The singer is searching for this boy who has become the apple of her eye. Yet it seems as if he has already hooked up with someone else, which his mom is trying to make Melanie aware of. However, she’s a hard girl, and the idea of giving up the pursuit apparently hasn’t crossed her mind yet.
Facts about “Brand New Key”
This song came out, via Neighborhood Records, during October of 1971. It is part of Melanie’s eighth album titled “Gather Me”.
“Brand New Key” went to the top of the Hot 100, Canada Top Singles, Kent Music Report (Australia) and US Cash Box Top 100.
Famed singer Olivia Newton-John covered this song in 2012.
“Brand New Key” made an appearance in “Boogie Nights”, a 1997 movie starring Mark Wahlberg.
Many people recognize “Brand New Key” as rather being entitled ‘The Roller Skate Song’.
Melanie dropped a follow-up track, entitled “Ring the Living Bell” (1972), to this song.
“Brand New Key” was written by Melanie and produced by Peter Schekeryk.
Melanie did a remix of this song for her 2002 album “Victim of the Moon”.
lyrics sound sexual to me!!!
How? It literally talks about a girl riding her roller-skates to a boy’s house, but he’s avoiding her lol
How???? You are kidding…I think you need to ask your mama about the birds and the bees and include an anatomy lesson.
I’ve literally had sex several thousand times in my life and the sexual innuendo never occurred to me until I read about it today. This song was written in an era in which you did not have to make everything sexual (though there was plenty of casual sex going round then, I was there). People were perfectly fine in that era and through the 1990s with women writing songs about something other than sex and wearing all their clothing while performing (in contrast to today’s addled little pop tarts who spread their legs on stage and perform songs written by middle aged men). This song was written by a woman who was possibly a little more mature and less sex-obsesses than you, Eddie.
Yes, but most song lyrics, like poetry, can’t be taken strictly literally. In lyrics and poetry, keys and locks almost always symbolize genitalia (or at least male and female) even if that is never stated overtly in the song or poem. If a song had the lyrics “I really want your key to open my door,” that song is probably about sex, EVEN IF the writer of the actual song didn’t intend it that way and thinks that he/she was just writing a boring song about opening a door. Sex is always in the subconscious of the human mind, even of a chaste woman in the 60s/70s, and the symbolism is very well known, so that could be how it ended up in the lyrics. Even Melanie says the meaning is up to the listener to interpret. Also, the fact that it was written at a time when it wasn’t considered appropriate for women to write about sex is all the more reason that she would have to hide that reference under a veil of symbolism. Still, the song was banned from being played on the radio in certain places because old white men who ironically had symbolic sticks up their asses thought it maybe might be kind of about sex. Sexual symbolism goes all the way back to at least to the Romantic poetry period, which is why people are so certain when they hear it. It’s a long, long tradition. Hell, it might even be why poetry was invented.
Also, thousands of times? Good for you!
Eddie we are not talking about having sec with your hand playing with it go away little boy
Mike, “several thousand times” not really sure having sex with your fist counts.
I think you might consider keeping your mind out of the gutter, perv.
I thought it meant coca-ne or hero-n.. brand new key, or kilo. It’s a “key” to what she needs.
No way
Bingo…
At the end of the day, this time period, everything was influenced by sexual innuendo and drugs and was simply less vulgar about it…
To say ‘a time when people did not need to make everything sexual is to be ignorant to the reality of history and the level of influence drugs/sex has had on everything since before TV existed.
Everyone was on drugs. EVERYONE… Doctors prescribed sh-t we put people in jail for just possessing today.
Coc–ne was in Coca-Cola for goodness sake.
If anything, this song suggests that she wanted free coke for sex and dude wasn’t interested, lmao. And the people who produced her music probably forced her to change the lyrics of an innocent song to have that sexual innuendo.
It’s what they do and have always done.
Just ask a modern megastar who has fallen from Hollywood.
Hell, despite what they claim today, a hanging ‘little person’ used to be pictured in the yellow brick road until the age of digital editing.
Anyone with it on VHS can prove it for themselves.
Original has the midget suicide
Modern has odd stalks blurred in.
Mother Hubbard was a poem about a whore before contraception!
A time before sexual innuendo has never existed.
Acceptable levels of vulgarity and lack of self respect are what have changed…
Rubbish
She’s been around the world? She’s an experienced traveler
I can’t see the sexuality in it either, lol.
keys were used to change wheels in rollerskates in those days …hence lock and key or you know and you know what….”lets try them on you see”…..
The song was, is, and shall remain, bulls–t. Popular? So is picking ones’ nose. And, just about as entertaining.
Let’s see shall we:
“I don’t go too fast but I go pretty far”
“”For someone who don’t drive I’ve been all around the world”
“I’m okay alone but you’ve got something I need”
I suppose someone raised as a nun or a eunuch might not get the double entendre (intended or not). Of course today many would consider this a song about a stalker…
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My take: She’s going to his house over and over, he changed the locks, so that would mean he has a “brand new key”. The mother said he’s home, but not alone…stage-5 clinger!
“For someone who don’t travel *I’ve been all around the world*” is a sexual innuendo whose exact implication has never been clear to me. From the period 1971/72 in university when this song came out, ‘all around the world’ meant an extended sex session, OR perhaps specifically, sex involving genitals, anus, and mouth, thus all around the body in a semi-circular path. At least one roommate used it to refer to a prostitute who charged one price for a one-off sex act, or a higher price for “all around the world”. I believe the innuendo occurs in a James Bond movie.
She rode a bicycle past his house in the evening, but in the morning she roller-skated to his front door and she thinks he’s avoiding her. She wants to date him. She’s got a new pair of roller skates and he’s got a new key (girlfriend?). From that it sounds like she wants a menage a trois (threesome) with him and his new girlfriend.
She had the courage to ask his mother where he was and he’s with his new girlfriend. She thinks that if she can’t have him to herself then perhaps they’d both like to have Melanie join them.
Of course that’s rubbish and she simply wants to date this guy who already has a girlfriend. She’s not gonna let him get away easily.
Uhm you all missed the mark…. even she did.
A brand new key= kilo of coc–ne.
This is about a girl who is waiting on her dealer for coke. Who she happens to be in love with.
Same thing with the sandman and Bob Dylan
There were plenty of drugs floating around then, (believe me I lived through the time as a teenager/young adult) but “key” had not been equated with a Kilo yet, not in the popular culture, anyway. Can’t speak to the hard drug culture, which we all knew was there, but did not dabble in. However a girl with something new, who knows a boy has “something she needs” and wants his “key” (like a key in a lock) and the mix in the semi-stalker parts being (then at least) common pubescent activities of both sexes, this struck me, from the first hearing, as the stealthiest “dirty song” they could not pull from radio play for the lyrics, that was ever created. At 71, I still agree with myself from back then.
Might want to listen to Arlo Guthrie’s “Coming Into Los Angeles” from 1969, which describes him “carrying a couple of keys”, and adding, “Don’t touch my bags, if you please, Mr. Customs Man”.
In the 60’s, the roller skates were metal with metal wheels with built in ‘clamps’ that fit around the lip of the sole of your shoe. The key was to adjust the length of the skate to ensure tightness. You usually skated on the concrete sidewalk or in the street (if you could get away with it). The vibration was horrible! … ok, now for the song, let’s just say teenage boys snickered about it, because it meant the girl wants to have sex with the boy – the key is his dick, dick! ‘let’s try them on to see’ ‘i go pretty far’ ‘i’ve been around the world’ She is a slut. The ironic thing is that it took a friend to point this out to me, and my mom though the song was so cute!
Ha, at my age, same as Melanie’s, I’m just discovering her. What a talent!
As far as the song, even then I picked up on all the terms. Very clever, really. I’m hearing what a vocal talent she is in other songs ! Fantastic girl. Please come for dinner…would so love to meet ha.
Everyone is over analyzing this song.
This is absolutely about sex. Full stop. Drugs, my behind, lol. 🙂
Afraid not. MElanie herself says it was not about sex but wasa stream of consiousness song she wrote in 15 minutes after quitting a fast. She says she understand WHY some people might think it was about sex, but the author says no. That is definitive.
Believe it or not, kids were still a little more naive about sex back then. I didn’t think that it was about sex when I first heard the song. Its a cute song. Lets just leave it like that.
I believe the girl is still being kid~ish. Used to roller skating n bike riding for fun. The boy, however is already more mature and into girls and cars etc. He’s nolonger interested in rollor skates or bikes. He actually just got a car / brand new key; ready to go out on dates and obviously other girls have his interest. She’s just a kid now, hasn’t outgrown the skates and bikes. She’s needing his companionship just like before , he’s too grown up now for silly skates or bikes. It’s about coming of age. Two kids taking a different direction bc interests change as kids mature. Nothing dirty going on there, folks.
brand new key = brand new d–k…hmmm…what happen to the old (birth issued) one?
“don’t go too fast but I got pretty far…” (definitely sexual) “been around the world…” (around the world is a euphemism for “doing everything”…oral, vaginal, anal…)
ok i’m 12 and i know this is about sex this song is
Rollerskate keys we’re not used for changing wheels they were used for taking the skates on and off. The Key was actually female type, in that it went over a spline rather than inside a key hole. I hope this doesn’t mess with everybody’s sexual innuendo meanings. I was 16 when it came out and always thought it was about a girl try to get the attention of a boy she liked; and probably got the skates knowing he had a key.
it’s about her relationship with god! she, like many others in the time, was taking psychedelics, fasting meditating. All of these things bring you closer to the awareness of self and and non self or god. So her saying she roller skated, she bicycled is referring to different methods she has tried to approach god. God has the Key to unlocking fully the awareness she experiences while fasting and meditating. This also explains the been around the world line. Many sages and elders of tribes are said to know all of the world even though they never leave their village. The mother she is asking if he is at home is the eternal mother. Many people report seeing her while tripping or in intense meditation. You can think of her as the last entity that you see before you go beyond the concept of separate entities and experience merging with the one fully. “i’m okay alone but you have something i need”, many people refer to this as the pull of god. Don’t believe it? take some mushrooms and listen, you’ll laugh for a half an hour. Also, the stalking theory makes sense. The sex one? sure, the been around the world line i guess but only if you think roller skates and keys mean vagina and penis and i mean that seems like a pretty damn big stretch hahaha but i mean alright, who am i to say. No, really… who am i? 😉
I fully agree with “Dirk Diggler” (5.), above. I was a teenager in the 70s, everyone and I knew broke in laughs at first hearing, her roller coasters had become functional and the key of his also. So she’s thinking that they should get together and try them out to see if they match.
But there are people who firmly believe that even the ding-a-ling of Chuck Berry is the common children’s toy, or what the posture ‘like a prayer’ is all about. Lyrics of 50s, 60s and 70s particularly are rich in double entendres due to the censorship conducted by ‘the man’.