We still hear about Woodstock, even in 2020. But we hear only what the media wants us to hear about it. Media accounts of Woodstock make it look like the festival was all about drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll. But it wasn’t. Peace and love filled to spirit of the festival. Love isn’t just free love, or sex. It is a love for each other. And we don’t hear much about the spirit of Woodstock. And spirituality at Woodstock. Even in the four-hour documentary movie about Woodstock, there is no footage of Melanie. Melanie’s take on Woodstock makes the festival a spiritual experience. Indeed it was, or it wouldn’t be remembered. No one would remember just a week-end of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll.
Listen to Melanie’s words about Woodstock in her song, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)”:
We were so close there was no room
We bled inside each others wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away
Melanie had a spiritual experience while performing at Woodstock, and the crowd knew it, and they were with her. She says,
“At that moment, 500,000 people saw me have this spiritual awakening because I realised that I wasn’t a body. The body is a separate thing to whatever you want to call it, the spirit or the soul or whatever. The actual being of me was not that body. I left. That moment that happened in front of those people, that was the uniqueness of Woodstock, for me. And even though people didn’t know what was happening, they knew something had happened. And they were with me.”
Melanie doesn’t use drugs, so the spirituality was real. There was that spirit, that spirituality at Woodstock, too. There were those who came to pray, to keep the darkness away, who sang songs of peace, who were so close they bled inside each others’ wounds.
For whatever reason, we don’t hear about that aspect of Woodstock. And we don’t hear about Melanie. She is Woodstock’s unsung voice. But for those of us lucky enough to know Melanie’s music and beautiful spirit, Melanie’s take on Woodstock gives as much light as 500,000 lit candles raised against the dark.
David Fekete 