"The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" Premiere: The New Hit Song of The Summer of '07

For those of you whose cable blacked out during the last minute of The Sopranos right after we learned that Meadow Soprano has the same parallel parking issues that I do… what you missed was Dr. Bob Hartley/Bob Newhart woke up in bed with a half read book about "Psychotherapy for Sociopaths", rolled over in bed, and said…”Wow honey.. Did I have the weirdest dream”… and there from under the covers wearing nothing but a leather teddy with S&M spikes emerged Dr. Melfi. Odd, don’t you think?

Well today is New music Tuesday and to coincide with that… we are releasing our recorded version of “The Ballad of Melanie McGuire” c2007. Check out the
Original April column for more background. You will see a link to a website that explains the song “Creeque Alley” by The Mamas and the Papas. The Ballad of Melanie McGuire c 2007 is the story of Melanie to the tune of that Mamas and Papas classic!

If you didn't click back to the April column... here is some background of the Melanie McGuire story excerpted from the archives.

She was convicted in April on charges that she barbarically murdered her husband by hacking him to bits and dumping him in a suitcase off the Chesapeake River. What really bugs me about this woman is her sheer narcissism that she thought she could just kill this poor guy and get away with it. She even had the audacity to cover her tracks by challenging EZ Pass charges that put her near the Chesapeake, and bizarre taxicab adventures explaining how she went to Atlantic City to move her husband's car as "a prank to annoy him". Does she really think she is so smart and the cops are so stupid? Constitutionally speaking she had the right to a strong defense, but does she really think her bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina really believed she was innocent and didn't take on the case so he could get a ton of free publicity with Court TV face time?

I find it hard to believe that she acted alone, and after watching a ton of Law and Order reruns, it amazes me that her narcissism never allowed her accept the inevitable plea deal to give up an accomplice who must have helped her with the heavy chopping and the suitcase packing. Its incredibly arrogant that she wouldn’t take a plea and instead went with the Little Miss Innocent Defense - that the husband was mean to poor sweet Melanie.

For those of you who haven’t been following this sordid storyline.. Melanie McGuire has her own website soliciting money for what turned out to be her losing defense fund. According to the Melanie McGuire website, she started out life as Melanie Slate, growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She graduated Middletown High School South in 1990, graduated Rutgers in 1994 and a Nursing School in 1997. Murder wasn’t the first of The Ten Commandments she opted to violate.. She started having an affair with her murdered husband while he was married to his first wife… and then started her little affair with her colleague Dr. Bradley Miller while she was 9 months pregnant.

In case you missed the trial… Melanie was accused of chopping up her husband,.. putting him in 3 suitcases and then hightailing it down the Turnpike where she dumped the suitcases off a bridge into the Chesapeake River. At the time, she was a nurse at a fertility clinic and having an affair with Fertility Doc Dr. Miller. Her trial was on Court TV and her lawyer was high profile defense att'y Joe Tacopina. She had originally reported the husband missing, shortly after they bought a new house in Warren County…. claiming he had a gambling problem and she told cops she thought he was at Trump's Taj Mahal casino. However she did admit she went down to AC.. found his car… (even though most people can't find a car in a mall parking lot; yet she found it in AC!) and moved it just to mess with his head. The cops also had a couple of ex boyfriends call her, and while secretly recording the conversations, tried to get the fellas to get Melanie to fess up. She also denied being on the highway when the suitcases were dumped… disputing EZ Pass records showing tolls paid by her. Is that the height of arrogance? Kill somebody and then order EZ Pass to remove the charges? I wonder if she haggled with the salesman when she bought those suitcases?

Thanks to the power of Google.. A lot of people meandered here for that April column.. Including the folks at the Melanie McGuire Bulletin Board at CourtTV.com who got a kick of the song when we released the lyrics... How ironic that Google was the same website Melanie used to find ways to murder her husband! That just did not look good for her when her husband ended up dead. She also poisoned him with a forged prescription she picked up at Walgreens near my old condo, and stayed at a hotel right near the Walgreens! Employees for both those establishments testified during the trial.


And now before the grand premiere of "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" c2007, its important to appreciate the sheer genius of the original Creeque Alley so in true Don Kirshner style - here it is!




And now without further ado… The Premiere of “The Ballad of Melanie McGuire”! sung by myself and Neil Fein… Neil’s the guy with the good voice…






Here is some background info: First of all Neil Fein is a musical genius… It was Neil’s brilliance that brought this song to life. He put a lot of work into creating its sound.. from learning the song all the way to figuring out a pitch that I could handle. If you read the background info about the song, you will note that Mama Cass had some problems hitting certain notes and it might seem that the others might have been jealous of her superior talent by creating a song that is actually very difficult to sing. We also invited one of my German relatives whose voice sounds uncannily like Dr. Ruth Westheimer to sing some background vocals…

For now we are just embedding it.. a video will be released soon along with an mp3. In order to get the timing just right I listened to my Mamas and Papas record (!) over and over again on my $250 Sharp SG-164 New Decorator Series stereo system. The song was written in the early days of the trial - but the lyrics weren't released until the jury came back with the verdict.. I had thought about changing the line that rhymes with "Mama Cass" to "She fought with EZ Pass", but decided it would take away from the songs edginess, and basically it would have sounded like a Puff The Magic Dragon-esque folk song. If Neil and I do the summer concert scene and do day camp shows at the Garden State Arts Center, obviously we will clean it up a bit! And I really don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings with this song... as I mentioned back on April 24th the damage was done when Melanie killed this poor guy... this song is the story of her incredibly cruelty.

And yes, Neil wore his fur hat during the recording… maybe not such a great idea since this is the week animal rights activist Bob Barker is stepping down after 35 years on The Price is Right!




Now time for The Clip of the Week: Since we started today with a Bob - (Newhart), we will conclude with a Bob - Bob Barker! This Friday is Bob Barker’s final day on The Price is Right. Since today we wrote about a column from April…. here is a clip with a woman named April who bears a bit of a resemblance to...Melanie McGuire… And take a wild guess what she tries to win!