When Melanie “Brand New Key” debuted in 1971, some people were confused. What did the singer, who died Tuesday at 76, mean when she sang that she had a brand new pair of skates and someone else had a brand new wrench?
Melanie told an interviewer that she wrote the song in 15 minutes after finishing a 27-day fact, and that it was meant to be cute. The folk singer said it had no deeper meaning, although many believed his playful lyrics about cycling and skating were really about sex (“Don’t go too fast, but I go far enough”). It sounded strange, like a song out of time—Melanie said she was meant to listen to the 1930s—sung with what could now be called a drawl “Indie girl voice.” And somehow it made it to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song has remained in pop culture, since a lip sync battle between Jimmy Fallon and Melissa McCarthy in a post-apocalyptic DJ playing it endlessly with the theme “Children in the Hall”.
“Brand New Key” wasn’t the first No. 1 song to confuse listeners, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Here are some of the weirdest and, actually, let’s be honest, fun songs to top the US Billboard chart over the years:
“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” by Bryan Hyland
A woman scared and nervous about leaving the dressing room and being seen in a brand new tiny bikini is the subject of this song which debuted in 1960 and was in first place for one week. The song may not have aged well, but it has been resurrected in a Yoplait Light commercial in 2005 about a woman who, after eating yogurt for months, was finally able to wear her own yellow polka dot bikini.
“Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett
It wouldn’t be Halloween time without this song, which peaked in 1962, can be heard everywhere from grocery stores to home speakers. Elvis Presley reportedly told a friend that he hated the song and thought it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard, Bobby Pickett he said in an interview with Billboard. On the track, Pickett sang about a monster in his lab that got up and danced to the “Monster Mash”.
“Fly Robin Fly” by Silver Connection
This European disco song is only six words long and spent three weeks at number one since its debut in 1975. Need we say more?
“Convoy” by CW McCall
A strange year, 1975. This song about a truck debuted then and a week has passed at No. 1. So it’s a cross-country march that became an anthem for truckers (and, later, Homer Simpson). “We’ve got a great big entourage,” goes the song. “Isn’t it a beautiful sight?”
“Disco Duck” by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots
This song actually includes the sound of quacking ducks in the background. It was in first place for four weeks in 1976 and the video features a dancing duck. “I was on the dance floor actin’ weird,” the lyric says, “flapping my hands I started clapping, look at me, I’m the disco duck.”
“Mickey” by Tony Basile
The song debuted in 1982 and a week has passed at the top. The upbeat anthem, featured in the 2000 film “Bring it On,” is on repeat.
“I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred
This earworm, which debuted in December 1991, held first place for three weeks. The brothers who made up the English pop group sang about what they were too sexy for: shirts, Milan, New York, Japan, other people’s bodies, cars, their hats, the list goes on. In the music video, the shirtless brothers dance on a catwalk while women in bikinis take pictures of them.
“Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” by Los del Rio
This song debuted on the chart in 1995 and spent 14 weeks at the top. The dance that accompanies this song is still fun to play at weddings and elsewhere.
“Harlem Shake” by Bauer
This song by a Brooklyn-based electronic producer topped the charts in 2013, the same year Billboard was added YouTube data stream in its methodology. But two of the artists featured on the song – Hector Delgado, a reggaetón artist, and Jayson Musson, a rapper from Philadelphia – did not give Baauer permission to use their voices and snippets of their music.
“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus
The unusual collaboration between rapper Lil Nas X and country music star Billy Ray Cyrus debuted in 2019 and went 19 weeks in the No. 1 position. In July of that year, it became the longest-running No. 1 single in the 61-year history of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The song sparked heated debates about what could be considered country music.