Melanie Safka, professionally known as Melanie, didn’t plan to attend the Woodstock Music Festival that paved the way for her breakthrough hit, “(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain.” At that time in 1969, she was in England working on a soundtrack with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Her manager convinced her to go to Woodstock in the hopes that she would secure a performance slot.
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When she arrived, the festival was awash in rain, mud, food shortages, and unsanitary conditions. But she was undaunted. The New York City native was determined to play her music—in a way, to continue her family’s heritage. Melanie’s mother was a jazz singer, and took Melanie to many jazz clubs when she was kindergarten-aged.
“When I was five and six, I was writing torch songs. I didn’t know what I was saying, and my mom would laugh. As a teenager, I also got very into Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, and Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith—solo women who sing their hearts out. All that really hit me,” she told The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.
And Melanie, who was born in Astoria, Queens, New York, already had decades of performing experience when she arrived at Woodstock. She was just four years old she sang “Gimme a Little Kiss” on a local radio show, according to The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. She spent her time in high school performing at a Long Beach, New Jersey, coffee house called The Inkwell.
It wasn’t long until she began singing in clubs in Greenwich Village, according to the Center for the Arts. That’s where Columbia Records’ John Hammond first heard her and signed her to the label. Melanie’s small stature, young voice and seeming innocence was the perfect look for a singer in that counterculture era.
The Fateful Woodstock Performance
When Melanie took the Woodstock stage, she had never performed in front of more than 500 people. When she looked out at the tens of thousands in front of the stage that August 15 night, she had a case of nerves to say the least, but gathered her courage, walked onto the stage, and sat on a metal folding chair. She played without backing players, the only woman and only one of three performers at the fest to do so. It was just her and her guitar.
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During her 11 to 11:30 p.m. set, she performed seven songs, including “Beautiful People,” which would appear on her second album:
If I weren’t afraid you’d laugh at me
I would run and take all your hands
And I’d gather everyone together for a day
And when we gather’d
I’ll pass buttons out that say
Beautiful people
Then you’d never have to be alone
’Cause there’ll always be someone
With the same button on as you
Include him in everything you do
Although Melanie was unknown at the time, the audience was enchanted and began to light candles, matches and lighters, which they held aloft as she performed. Stories regarding the lights are conflicting, but legend has it that members of the Hog Farm commune happened to have handed out candles throughout the Woodstock audience just before Melanie’s set.
A Life-Changing Experience and Song
The shimmering lights deeply impacted Melanie. When she returned home, she wrote about the sight and her feelings of camaraderie and joy when she was at the festival. “(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain” would become one of the defining anthems of the Woodstock generation.
When discussing the creation of “(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain,” Melanie recalls how the song began forming in her mind even during the festival. The lyrics reflect the overwhelming sense of community she felt that night. “Witnessing that hill light up was akin to seeing countless fireflies,” she said.
Melanie recorded “Candles” with the Edwin Hawkins Singers, who had previously popularized “Oh Happy Day.” The Singers were initially hesitant to record the song because it was secular, but they agreed after Melanie explained the meaning behind it. The song, which blends folk and gospel, also became an anthem for anti-Vietnam War protestors.
“Woodstock was a life-changing experience,” Melanie is quoted as saying on the Bethel website. “I really sensed a connectedness with the people. I felt a positive wave and human power flowing into me and can never forget that. The people who will ever experience that….I had an out-of-body experience when I walked out on that stage. I left my body. I didn’t hear a thing. I wasn’t there and was hovering above my body and at some moment felt one with myself again. It was the extraordinary circumstance that I was put in.”
Post-Woodstock
After Woodstock, Melanie returned to the recording studio and released her second album with Buddah, Affectionately Marie, which did slightly better on the charts than did her first album. But it was her third album, Candles in the Rain, that would break through on the strength of the song it was named after. Melanie released the single “(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain” in July 1970, and it reached No. 6 on the Billboard pop single charts.
Photo by: Universal Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
