Melanie: Stoneground Words (Coloured Vinyl 2xLP)

In 1972, Melanie and her producer and husband Peter Schekeryk began work on what she intended to be her most ambitious album yet. Stoneground Words was to be a double album - the first such statement from any female rock artist. It would also be the first worldwide release on Neighborhood Records, the label she and Schekeryk established in 1971 - another first, as she entered territory into which only the Beatles, the Stones and the Moody Blues had previously stepped.

Even more crucially, however, it was her personal response to the enormous success, earlier in the year, of the hit “Brand New Key” - “the bicycle song,” as so many people recall it. Stoneground Words returned to the drawing board. Ten songs were selected; the remainder were placed to one side; and the album was released to generally positive reviews which included Melody Maker’s assertion that it was “the most sophisticated she's made. The naiveté of [the past has] been replaced by deeper, more comprehensive methods of expression.”

She is the first to admit that the new edition of Stoneground Words is not a true facsimile of the original. The paperwork for all three projects, after all, disappeared long ago, as did the tapes (“who knows where?”).

Dusky pink vinyl version.

1. Here I Am
   
2. My Rainbow Race
   
3. Wild Horses
   
4. Summer Weaving
   
5. Between The Road Signs
   
6. Together Alone
   
7. Maybe Not For A Lifetime
   
8. I Am Being Guided
   
9. I Think It’s Going To Rain Today
   
10. The Actress
11. Pretty Boy Floyd
    
12. Lovers Cross
13. Maybe I Was A (Golf Ball)
    
14. Song Of The South
    
15. I Am Not A Poet
    
16. Pine And A Feather
17. Stoneground Words
    
18. Do You Believe
    
19. Holding Out
    
20. Love To Lose Again
    
21. Here I Am - Alt Version