American Pie Song Analysis

"A long, long time ago,

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.

And, I knew, if I had my chance, That I could make those people dance

And maybe they'd be happy for awhile.

This passage identifies "American Pie"'s author, audience, and purpose. Who are they?

"But February made me shiver,

With every paper I'd deliver.

Bad news on the doorstep,

I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried,

When I read about his widowed bride.

Something touched me deep inside,

The day, the music died."

So, Bye Bye Miss American Pie.

Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry.

And good ol' boys, drinkin' whiskey 'n' rye,

Singin' this'll be the day that I die.

This'll be the day that I die.

While "Rolling Stone" has obvious connotations to the British rock 'n' roll group of the same name, begun in 1962, Bob Dylan changed music, forever,with the release of "Like a Rolling Stone" in 1965.

Both Dylan and the Rolling Stones took their titles from a lyric in the 1948 Hank Williams country tune, "Lost Highway."

Well, for ten years, we've been on our own.

And, moss grows fat on a rolling stone,

But that's not the way it used to be.

When the jester sang for the king and queen,

with a coat he borrowed from James Dean,

With a voice that came from you and me.

Vladimir Leni was an early, twentieth-century political leader, in Russia, who based much of his ideology off of Karl Marx's groundbreaking, 1848, political text The Communist Manifesto. The idea of communist communities referred to as communes were very popular in the 1960s.

"And, while Lenin read a book of Marx,

The quartet practiced in the park.

And, we sang dirges in the dark,

The day the music died.

"Helter Skelter, in summer swelter.

The Birds fell off the fallout shelter,

Eight Miles High and falling fast.

It landed foul, on the grass,

The players tried for a forward pass,

With the Jester on the sidelines, in a cast.

Now, the half-time air was sweet perfume,

While sergeants played a marching tune.

We all got up to dance.

Oh, but we never got the chance.

'Cause the players tried to take the field.

The marching band refused to yield.

Do you recall what was revealed,

The day, the music died?

"And we were all in one place,

A generation lost in space,

With no time left to start, again.

So, come on: Jack be nimble, Jack be Quick, Jack Flash sat on a candlestick,

'Cause fire is the devil's only friend.

And, as I watched him on the stage,

My hands were clutched in fists of rage

No angel born in hell, could break that Satan's spell.

And as the flames climbed high into the night,

To light the sacrificial light,

I saw Satan laughing with delight,

The Day the music died.

I met a girl who sang the blues,

And I asked her for some happy news.

But, she just smiled and turned away.

I went down to the sacred store,

Where I'd heard the music years before.

But the man there said the music wouldn't play.

And, in the streets, the children screamed.

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed.

But not a word was spoken,

The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most--

The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost--

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died.

Don McLean's album, American Pie, featuring the single of the same name, was released October, 1971. It was dedicated to the memory of Buddy Holly, an early rock 'n' roll musician who died in a plane crash, in February 1959.

Questions to Consider:

1.) How does McLean feel about musicians like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, the Monotones, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones? How do McLean's perceptions of Rock 'n' Roll change and shift, over the course of the song?

2.) What figurative feelings does the literal image of American Pie conjure for you? How does Don McLean perceive America in the 1950s and the 1960s and 1970s?

3.) What are McLean's perceptions of life as a young man, in the 1950s? What are his perceptions as an adult in the 1960s and 1970s, w what changes him? What changes America?

Don Mclean was 25 years old, when he wrote "American Pie."

He was 13, when Buddy Holly was killed.

Janis Joplin, a popular blues-influenced musician, died of a heroin overdose, on October 4, 1970.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/02/specials/joplin-obit.html

The Woodstock Music & Art Fair was held in Woodstock, New York, from August 15-18, 1969. Billed as "3 Days of Peace and Music," 500,000 people attended. It is the most iconic concert of all time.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/woodstock-music-festival-concludes

http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1876542,00.html

On July 20, 1969, American astronauts stepped foot on the moon for the first time.

The televised footage was watched by 600 million viewers.

http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/for-all-mankind-a-brief-cultural-history-of-the-moon/

On February 3rd, 1959, early rock n' roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash, over Iowa.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ritchie-valens-j-p-the-big-bopper-richardson-and-buddy-holly-233107/

The Rolling Stones released "Sympathy for the Devil," in 1969. Narrated from the devil's point-of-view, many citizens were outraged by what they perceived to be devil worship.

"Jumpin' Jack Flash" was a popular rock 'n' roll track, released by the Rolling Stones, in 1968.

How does Don McLean characterize Mick Jagger, throughout this stanza?

Why might he characterize Jagger, this way?

Buddy Holly left behind a wife, Maria Elena Holly. At the time of Holly's fatal accident, he and his wife had only been married six months.

Martin Luther King was an ordained minister who sought to institute racial equality, in the United States, through non-violent protests. An assassin's bullet ended his life, on April 4, 1968.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stones-disaster-at-altamont-let-it-bleed-19700121

The Altamont Speedway Free Concert at Candlestick Park, in December 1969, was designed to be a west-coast Woodstock, headlined by the Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones employed the Hell's Angels as security guards.

During the Rolling Stones's set, a Hells Angel stabbed an eighteen-year-old, African American youth to death.

Joseph Kennedy had hoped to raise a son who would become president. After John F. Kennedy as killed, Robert Kennedy became the Democratic presidential forerunner, in the 1968 elections. He was assassinated on June 6, 1968.

On November 22, a sniper's bullet killed president John F. Kennedy, as he rode through Dallas, in his motorcade. He left behind a son, JFK, behind, who saluted his father, at the funeral. It was John F. Kennedy Jr.'s third birthday.

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination

http://time.com/3879872/robert-kennedy-assassination-photographs-by-bill-eppridge-june-1968/

The Beatles released their 1967 album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, to great acclaim. The album featured a recurring concept of characters pretending to be other people, by having the Beatles pretend to be other people: Sgt. Pepper and his band. Today, the album is widely considered to be the greatest of all time.

Introduction and Overview

On May 4, 1970, peaceful protestors at Kent State University, marching to end the war in Vietnam, were fired upon by the Ohio National Guard. Four students were killed.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Kent_State_Shootings

A year before his death, Buddy Holly released the song "That'll Be the Day" that contains the lyric, "That'll be the day that I die."

As political and social tensions increased around the world, The Beatles music became less about love and compassion and more about violence. Some consider "Helter Skelter" (1968) from The Beatles' White Album to be the first heavy metal song.

In the summer of 1969, Charles Manson, a self-styled messiah and minor cult leader, had his followers break into the home of director Roman Polanski.

There, they brutally murdered Polanski's pregnant girlfriend, actress Sharon Tate. In her blood, Manson's followers wrote, "Helter Skelter" and "Piggies" references to two Beatles White Album Songs. Manson hoped his murders would inspire a race riot that would destroy the world, leaving only his followers alive.

Many people consider Manson's perversion of hippie ideals, into violence, to be the true end of the 1960s.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/actress-sharon-tate-found-murdered

As cold war tensions grew between the United States and the Soviet Union, many Americans built fallout shelters, in anticipation of nuclear war.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3706.html

In 1966, The Birds' hit single "Eight Miles High" was banned from American radio waves, from concern that the content was about drugs.

"The Book of Love" also known as "(Who Wrote) The Book of Love" was an early, popular, rock 'n' roll song, released February, 1958, a year before Holly's death.

Bob Dylan was in a serious motorcycle accident, in 1966, that nearly cost him his life and left him in a cast.

Well, did you write the book of love?

And do you have faith in God above,

If the Bible tells you so?

And do you believe in rock 'n' roll?

Can music save your immortal soul?

And can you teach me how to dance, real slow?

http://folkmusic.about.com/od/bobdylan/a/Bob-Dylan-Motorcycle-Accident.htm

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2001/no-1169-december-2001/marx-and-lenins-views-contrasted

The Beatles final public performance occurred in 1966, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

The public anticipation was so great that the Beatles needed to be delivered in armored cars. The shouts and cries from their fans was so raucous that the four rock 'n' roll superstars could not hear themselves play.

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1966/08/29/candlestick-park-san-francisco-final-concert/

However, McLean was more likely making a pun about John Lennon, the former Beatle and world's most influential musician, reading a book of "marks" or musical notes.

Well, I know that you're in love with him,

'Cause I saw you dancing in the gym.

You both kicked off your shoes.

Man, I dig them rythm and blues.

I was a lonely, teenage broncin' buck,

with a pink carnation and a pickup truck.

But, I knew I was out of luck,

The day the music died.

How does the perspective of when the song is being narrated shift? If Buddy Holly died in 1959 and "American Pie" was released in 1971, what is McLean suggesting about how things in the United States have changed in the intervening decade?

"And, while the king was looking down,

The Jester stole his thorny crown.

The courtroom was adjourned.

No verdict was returned."

Elvis Presley is still largely referred to as "The King" of Rock 'n' Roll.

https://www.biography.com/people/elvis-presley-9446466

John F. Kennedy's presidential administration was largely referred to as Camelot, a reference to the legendary kingdom of Arthur. Kennedy was

assassinated, in 1963.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-f-kennedy-assassinated

The cover of the extraordinarily influential, 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan features Bob Dylan wearing a jacket similar to the one worn by James Dean in Rebel without a Cause.

American Pie Song Analysis

The 1955 film Rebel without a Cause, starring James Dean was hugely influential in defining how the nonconformist youth of the 1950s and 1960s saw themselves.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-rebel-without-a-cause-1955

Folk music is music often historic and was often composed by slaves and poorer classes. It is also often political and gave the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, and the enslaved a voice and a tempo to rally against perceived iniquity.

http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_itc_historical_background.html

As the 1960s ended and the 1970s began, musicians like Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and the Beatles, all of whom are referenced by Don McLean in "American Pie," became vastly more popular than the musicians of the 1950s, such as Elvis, "The King," or Buddy Holly, who are also referenced in American Pie.