Brooklyn Duo Reinvents Melanie Song
When Melanie Anne Safka [1947-2024] graduated Long Branch High School, she had no idea she’d become a cultural icon (known only by her first name), perform bravely by herself at the Woodstock festival in 1969 (capturing the heart of a generation) or have a composition of hers that she never even properly recorded be brought back to life by an acoustic goth folk cabaret duo from Brooklyn, Charming Disaster.
She once described her “Aloha Lucifer” as “a happy song, because even the Devil probably needs to take a summer vacation.” The only known existing version of the tune is one she just happened to sing live in the studio shortly after she wrote it.
That’s the version Charming Disaster—Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris—heard and used to completely transcend into an apt sign of the times. “We really thought of this as a collaboration with Melanie,” they say. “We approached the song the way we always do: what does it need and how can we best serve it to make it shine?”
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Melanie sang it in 2020 as alt-folk. “To give the song a new sound and make it a bit more unexpected, we found a different chord profession that still fit under Melanie’s original vocal melody—which was sort of like solving a puzzle. We’re excited to bring something new to her creation. Her phrasing and lyrical style was always so unique and oftentimes whimsical. We wanted to support that.”
Charming Disaster will be performing the song—and others from their five albums in 12 years of death, crime, myth, magic, folklore, science and the occult—at the Darkside New Jersey Art & Oddities Market in Edison November 16. Cleopatra Records has promised more groundbreaking Melanie reissues and collaborations in the coming months.