On January 15, 1972, “American Pie,”, an epic poem in musical form that has long been etched in the American popular consciousness, hits #1 on the Billboard charts.
The story of Don McLean’s magnum opus begins almost 13 years before its release, on a date with significance well-known to any American who was alive and conscious at the time. Tuesday February 3, 1959, was the date of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson—a date that would be imbued with transcendent meaning by Don McLean when he labeled it “the Day the Music Died.”
One might reasonably point out that the baby-boom generation has since invested its entire rock-and-roll experience with transcendent meaning, but don’t blame Don McLean for starting the trend. “American Pie” wasn’t written to be a generation-defining epic; it was written simply to capture McLean’s view of “America as I was seeing it and how I was fantasizing it might become.”
When asked to explain what exactly he was trying to say with some of his more ambiguous lyrics, McLean has generally declined. Many others have applied themselves to the task, however, and even today the Internet bristles with exhaustively reasoned interpretations of “American Pie” and its web of lyrical references to the youth culture of the 1950s and 60s.
The meaning of the Stolen Crown and Marching Band may be of interest only to the most obsessive of baby boomers, but almost all of us know the chorus of “American Pie” better than we know our own national anthem, and the chances are good that our great-grandchildren will, too. Which isn’t bad for a song that was written and recorded by a struggling folk singer who merely hoped that it would “earn two or three thousand dollars and make survival for another year possible.”
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It was our Anthem and we didn’t understand much of it then. I remember a gaggle of girls at a birthday sleepover, 3rd grade, in pajamas recording ourselves singing the song on my friend’s brand new cassette tape recorder.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry… and good old boys drinking whiskey and rye singing this will be the day that I die.
http://understandingamericanpie.com/index.htm
Pictures of words are faster sometimes.
And before Yo gets the chance, I’ll let you know that yes, McClean has ties to Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Rock-legend-Don-McLean-returns-to-Israel-558345
So what?
Jerusalem, Jerusalem all roads lead to you
Jerusalem, Jerusalem your light is shining through
And you will show, show the way, to all who see it shine
That we can live, in peace, in Jerusalem this time
The walls will keep you in, the walls will keep you out
The gates are calling those, who know what it’s about
Jerusalem, Jerusalem all roads lead to you
Jerusalem, Jerusalem your light is shining through
And you will show (you will show), show the way (show the way), to all who see it shine
That we can live, in peace, in Jerusalem this time
Jerusalem is old, Jerusalem is new
Jerusalem can hold, Moslem, Christian, Jew
In Jerusalem, Jerusalem all roads lead to you
Jerusalem, Jerusalem your light is shining through
And you will show (you will show), show the way (show the way), to all who see it shine
That we can live, in peace, in Jerusalem this time
Is an interesting album.
https://genius.com/Don-mclean-jerusalem-lyrics
Jester=Dylan. Marching band=Beatles. “As I watched him on the stage” = Jagger.
What a ridiculously nostalgic and laborious song. I’d rather listen to the scraping of a shovel on concrete with a megaphone to my ear. As ridiculous as everything by Crosby Stills and Gnash. I bought it one piece at a time and it didn’t cost me a dime…or now you’re messing with a son-of-a-bitch any day.