Gather Me

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I have a very well-worn vinyl copy of this album, and I have a feeling I’ll be spinning the digital version just as much. If Melanie has always been anxious not to be defined by her religious affiliation (which has changed over the years), and in later years has regarded herself as a secular humanist first and foremost, you'd never know it from listening to this!

Center of the circle is the big production number of the album, but even there the arrangement, which includes a small orchestra, doesn't overwhelm. But then, the "God stuff" keeps cropping up where you least expect it - not only in the album's coda (a song which may date from the 1900s), but implicitly in "Some Say I Got Devil" and "Railroad", and explicitly in "Center of the Circle", the longest of those seemingly-unfinished songs which fortunately is rescued by arranger Roger Kellaway - who unexpectedly converts it into a wild flight of fancy, a chamber-pop tour-de-force. Ring the Living Bell is arranged in a roots music fashion with an opening that sounds like it could have been recorded by a raw group in the Appalachian Mountains, before it shifts into more of a pop vein. Steppin' has a country feeling with its harmonica and piano and is a somewhat regretful break-up song with a determination to move on.Steppin'", which also sounds today like a pre-echo of Orton, and incidentally was the first "wronged-woman song" in her catalogue (if you overlook "Wait By the Water" and, indeed, "You Can Go Fishin'"). You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. To his credit, label head Neil Bogart promoted her relentlessly and also left her style be her own rather than trying to make her a bubblegum princess. Though she would release six more albums through 1976, this would be her peak on the radio and record charts.

Melanie always sounds so sweet, and even her version of protesting usually involves badges and light words rather than the more usual shouts and taunts by bare-chested young men. Some Day (I Got Devil) has the Spanish guitar intonations and sound as well as the same passion found in her song Tuning My Guitar, from the Melanie LP.The arrangements are mostly quiet and acoustic and even when strings are added they're not overwhelming.

The only time I felt good about myself when I was in front of you, and we were together, and I could see and sense that all was well. Buddah never did forgive Melanie for this and continued to dog her career by releasing old, in-the-can songs right around the time she'd release new songs on Neighborhood. It was such an unexpected surprise when I listened back to Brand New Key, Living Bell, Some Say, and I look at the girl I was.My Favorite album from Melanie's stint with Buddha Records, All great songs, with a lot of complex arrangements. For this listener, the biggest problem with the album is a more mundane one - there's too much religious content. The album also features the singles "Some Day I'll Be a Farmer" and the Top 40 hit "Ring the Living Bell".