In January 1972, as I approached my 15th birthday, Don McLean’s American Pie stood at number 1 on the Billboard charts. A long song, even by the extended play standards that prevailed on FM radio at the time, American Pie was the kind of song that you talked about with your friends at school. We all wanted to know what, exactly, the song meant.
Because, if you are not familiar with the song, you need to understand that American Pie was written in a kind of cryptic code, Even by the standards of the time, in the wake of the late Beatles efforts when many songs were dense and mysterious and opaque (like, for example, Procol Harem’s Whiter Shade of Pale), American Pie set new standards in the enigmatic category. The tune was great, and the refrain–“bye, bye, Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry, and good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this’ll be the day that I die”–was killer, but you desperately wanted the key to unlock the true meaning of the lyrics. I remember listening to a program on WCOL-FM, the cool FM station in Columbus at the time) that tried to deconstruct the song. McLean himself didn’t give us much help.
Now, 50 years later, Don McLean is apparently going to share the truth about the meaning of American Pie, in a new documentary called The Day The Music Died. As the accepted views at the time taught, “the day the music died” was the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper died in a tragic plane crash , , , but the rest of the prevailing wisdom evidently was misguided. According to the linked story in The Guardian, a lot of what people pontificated about (including the know-it-alls on the WCOL program way back when) may turn out to be wrong. Elvis Presley wasn’t “the King,” and Bob Dylan wasn’t “the Jester,” and Janis Joplin wasn’t the girl who sang the blues. Were the Beatles “the marching band that refused to yield”? And what did “fire is the devil’s only friend” mean? I guess we’ll have to watch the documentary find out.
It’s interesting to think that, 50 years later, the lyrics for American Pie remain tantalizing. That says something about the staying power of the song, doesn’t it?
Webner House 