• Forum server maintanace Friday night.(around 7PM Centeral time)
    Website will be off line for a short while.

    You may need to log out, log back in after we're back online.

Don McLean

Rudy

Admin
Joined
Jan 10, 2006
Messages
27,638
Location
Beaumont, CA
Last Saturday, I took the wife to the local casiono for a sit down dinner show, featuring Don McLean. Wow! He looks older that me, even though we were born within a couple of months from each other. His voice is not what it used to be and this was obvious when he sang his iconic song, American Pie (for the youngsters, that never hear this song, here is a video).


As I (and others) were loudly singing along to American Pie, my spouse, who was born and raised outside the US, pulled my sleeve and siad, "I don't understand the song's meaning". I was floored! How can she not understand? This song defined the era of the '50's and '60's.

So, I spent some time researching the possible meaning of the verses (McLean never divulged the meaning, leaving it to the fans) and sent it to her. Hope she reads it. It will help her understand me better.:roll:
 
Our middle son, when he was in high school in the late 1980s wrote an English term paper on the song and all the meanings and themes in it. Got a A+!:D

Could be because his parents were products of the era the song depicted.:roll:
 
It takes a guy ages to figure out the lyrics to this iconic Americana Funerary Hymnal.....so no foul at all on your Wifes part..you got to hear it recited Live though, and thats really something there Rudy!..
 
As much as I am a product of that time, and love the song, (bought the album, twice, vinyl and CD), I love the Weird Al J. take on it. :grin:



Even though the tune is a classic, it has been reborn into the Star Wars prequel generation(s), and personally, I think Weird Al did a fairly decent job of it. Normally I hate remakes of classic songs, but since this wasn't an attempt to redo the original song, but a spoof, I don't object. I love Weird Al's spoofs!

The good thing about American Pie is that the meaning is veiled. It makes a person do some research into history, learn about about music history, world history (Cold War Era) and think a bit. In combination with some of the other songs on the album, it gives the listener the mood of the time, that is, that some folks were pretty pessimistic about the future when looking in the rear view mirror of life. After WWI and WWII, Korea, and then the Vietnam conflict, plus civil strife, with the proliferation of hydrogen bombs and ICBM's, the prospect of thermonuclear war destroying humanity was a real possibility, and the thought of it affected everything, which is reflected in our (McLean's) music. Scary stuff, and the conflict in Syria today doesn't help put those fears to rest.
 
I'm just happy to still know all the words to the song. I figure when I start forgetting those lyrics I'll know I'm mentally slipping. :shifty:
 
I had this song on a 45 and used to play it all the time, I guess I was under 10 years of age at the time, wow if you would have seen that record player, kids- the stuff back then was so basic and easy. I sort of liked it, not complicated.

I am listening to it again, it would be a good song for high schoolers to listen to and try to determine some of the social issues of the last half 20th century.

Lennon reading Marx, when I was younger, no clue, I learned a lot from this song about America in the 70's.

He sings about the Jester??
 
For some strange, unimaginable reason, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant always comes to mind whenever I play American Pie.

 
For some strange, unimaginable reason, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant always comes to mind whenever I play American Pie.


That's a funny combination, but since you mention that, now I'm thinking about Jonathan Edwards "Sunshine Go Away Today" also. Maybe it's just the late 60s early 70s AM radio vibe or something.

And I guess Don finally explained some of American Pie's meaning... although it seems like I always knew it was about Buddy Holly dying, and a lot more cryptic stuff too far over my then 13 or so year old head.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...yrics-for-1-2-million/?utm_term=.1ba00b2e2087
 
For some strange, unimaginable reason, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant always comes to mind whenever I play American Pie.


Believe it or not, I have the factory reel-to-reel tape album of Alice's Restaurant! Although, the place that it is stored in is now storm damaged, so I have no idea of it's condition now. :(
 
That's a funny combination, but since you mention that, now I'm thinking about Jonathan Edwards "Sunshine Go Away Today" also. Maybe it's just the late 60s early 70s AM radio vibe or something.

And I guess Don finally explained some of American Pie's meaning... although it seems like I always knew it was about Buddy Holly dying, and a lot more cryptic stuff too far over my then 13 or so year old head.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...yrics-for-1-2-million/?utm_term=.1ba00b2e2087

Buddy Holly for sure, but there are many other characters and events from the '50's and '60's that the song alludes to, but which McLean never fully explained.

For example:

"drove my chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry". The chevy was an iconic automobile brand of course, but did you know that there was a bar in his hometown named The Levee? Was that where he was driving?

"But February made me shiver
with every paper I deliver"

February 3, 1959 was the date of the plane crash where Buddy Holly (McLean's hero) died. And it is the reasaon "the music died". But did you know that the only other job McLean ever had, besides singing and song writing, was delivering newspapers?

There are so many other interconnected things in the song that it is fascinating to see how he melded them together.
 
Back
Top Bottom