Become a Patron!

A Spin Off of Keep a Word/Drop a Word and Music, Pics, and Whatnot

Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Good afternoon Family
Just passin through sorta headin for a soak
I found this version of it's a wonderful world for Wolfie
This is not a game poat




May be an image of text that says 'Just stopping by to see who will say Good Morning! Hope γυ have Beautiful Day, iny firlends! Made MadeBy By Jesica'



May be an image of ‎text that says '‎Η Have a Great day my F riends! ماد Believe ท The Magic 이 Christmas -on- I Tacebook‎'‎
 
Bliss Doubt

Bliss Doubt

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Our 2025 music family holiday pic, with our new brother Gloop, a great gingerbread dragon I found, a white iced wolfie gingerbread, and a new gopher gingerbread. Gloop looks more like caramel than gingerbread, but when I tried to edit his texture it messed him up. He's dressed warmly though.

Gingerbread family pic 2025.png
 
Last edited:
gopher_byrd

gopher_byrd

Cranky Old Fart
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Bliss Doubt said:
Our 2025 holiday music family pic, with our new brother Gloop, a great gingerbread dragon I found, and a white iced wolfie gingerbread. Wish I could find a gingerbread gopher, but none found this year. Gloop looks more like caramel than gingerbread, but when I tried to edit his texture it messed him up.

View attachment 229049
Click to expand...
I made you one, well the AI made you one...1766530756888.png
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
May be an image of guitar and text that says 'ប្ព Anomalous club She wasn't supposed to be at Woodstock. She didn't have a pass. And when she walked off that stage, she had started α revolution no one saw coming including herself.'


In August 1969, Melanie Safka's mother drove her to what she thought was a small arts-and-crafts fair with some music. She imagined families on blankets having picnics.
Then she saw the helicopter.
Then she saw what looked like a strange crop stretching across the hillside. The pilot had to tell her: "That's people."
Half a million of them.
Melanie was 22 years old. She had one song that was getting some radio play in the Netherlands. She wasn't even officially on the schedule. Her record label had sent her on a gamble — maybe she'd get to perform, maybe she wouldn't.
When she arrived at the artist area, she didn't have a backstage pass. Things were chaos. She was put in a tiny tent with a dirt floor while the stars gathered in a larger tent nearby. Hour after hour, someone would open the flap and say "You're next" — then disappear.
She developed a nervous cough so severe that Joan Baez, hearing her from across the compound, sent an assistant with tea and honey. That small kindness from her idol became what Melanie later called her "Woodstock moment."
When The Incredible String Band refused to perform in the rain, the organizers needed someone to fill the slot.
They chose the unknown girl in the small tent.
Melanie walked onto that massive stage alone — no band, no roadies, just a woman with a guitar. She sat down on a metal folding chair, wearing a loose red tunic, and began to play.
She had no setlist. She had only three chords. And she had a voice that could fill the night.
As she sang, something extraordinary happened.
Members of the Hog Farm commune had been passing out candles to the rain-soaked crowd. One by one, people began lighting them. The hillside transformed into a sea of flickering flames stretching into the darkness.
"I saw them lighting the candles but I kept singing my heart out," Melanie recalled. "It was a release for me because I had been so scared all day. But I knew that I had connected with them. Instantaneously. It was a life-changing experience."
She walked onto that stage unknown. She walked off a star.
The experience haunted her in the best way. She wrote a song about what she'd seen from that stage — the faces, the flames, the feeling that strangers could become one. "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" became a Top 10 hit and established a concert tradition that continues to this day: fans holding up lights during emotional songs.
But the industry didn't know what to do with Melanie.
She wasn't brooding enough for the serious folk scene. She wasn't polished enough for pop. And she absolutely refused to be molded.
At just 20, she had walked out on Columbia Records when Clive Davis insisted on "guidance" about how she should present herself. Later, Buddah Records tried the same thing — demanding she produce albums on command, marketing her as "a cute little hippie girl."
She fought back. Every time.
"Her first battle, aged just 20, was with Clive Davis," one biography noted. "Other industry kingpins, too, tried to shape and mould her, and they too lost the battle."
Finally, she did something that had never been done before.
In 1971, Melanie and her husband Peter Schekeryk formed Neighborhood Records. It became the first female-owned independent label in rock history.
Her first release on her own label? "Brand New Key." It went to number one. Sold over three million copies worldwide.
She had proven that you didn't need the industry's permission to succeed. You just needed the courage to say no.
Her voice grew raspier over the decades. Her fame dimmed in America while she remained beloved in Europe. She released over 30 albums, won an Emmy Award, became a UNICEF ambassador, and continued performing into her seventies.
When Miley Cyrus wanted to collaborate with a true original in 2015, she called Melanie. When Jarvis Cocker curated the Meltdown Festival, he invited her to headline.
Critics eventually caught up. The Independent wrote that she had "earned her place alongside Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and Marianne Faithfull in the pantheon of iconic female singers."
But the indie artists who came after her — every musician who ever said "no" to a label deal, every woman who ever started her own company to control her own work — they already knew.
Melanie Safka died on January 23, 2024, at age 76. She was working on her 32nd album.
Her children asked fans to light a candle in her memory.
It was the only possible way to say goodbye to the woman who taught half a million strangers that light can find light, even in the rain.
#MelanieSafka #WoodstockLegend
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

VU Sponsors

Top