Song #37: Don McLean - "American Pie" (1971)
American Pie
"And while Lenin read a book on Marx, the quartet practiced in the park, and we sang dirges in the dark the day the music died."
I
remember singing Don McLean's monstrous hit "American Pie" - and I mean
the full eight and a half minute song, not the five minute radio edit -
on the swingset in my backyard when I was eight or nine-years-old,
marveling at the complexity of the song, its length, and its lyrics sung
with incredible passion and emotion on part of McLean himself. The song
got me so energized and excited in some parts, while bringing me down
when McLean would circumvent and return to his more somber, sadder focus
during the first and the last verse.
One
thing remains about me and "American Pie" that was prominent when I was
younger; I still don't really have much of an idea what the song talks
about and can only give the interpretation of a handful of lyrics. The
song is well-known for its heavily ambiguous, cryptic lyrics, much of
which have been open for analysis, debate, and interpretation for years,
with McLean remaining courageously silent on his meanings behind the
lyrics. Just like The Eagles' "Hotel California," it seems we'll never
know the official meaning - just the heavily-analyzed meanings of
bloggers like us.
In
a broad sense, the song describes "The Day the Music Died," or February
3, 1959, where musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Vallens, and J.P. "The
Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash in Iowa. The crash
left the United States and the music industry stunned, as three
invaluable talents, one of them seventeen-years-old, were taken like
that, forever leaving a scar on the rock and roll industry that was just
gaining serious momentum in the late fifties.
McLean's
"American Pie" has been the defining song of that incident, recounting
the horrors and how "February made [him] shiver with every paper [he'd]
deliver," and discusses other surrounding events that occurred around
the time these three artists were killed. My favorite line is the one I
quoted above, which can be open to just as much interpretation as any of
the lines of the song. Breaking it down one by one, the reference to
Lennon reading a book on Marx could go both ways; we could either be
talking John Lennon, who was believed to be influenced by the German
philosopher Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, a Russian philosopher who
believed in Marx politics). I believe it's the latter because the
followup line already concerns The Beatles by saying "the quartet
practiced in the park." Finally, "we sang dirges in the dark" references
sad songs or dark poetry, meaning, to fit the time period and the
surrounding events, the narrator and his pals engaged in dark poetic
exchanges.
Don
McLean's "American Pie" really tests the idea of just what music is.
Essentially, music is poetry with instrumentation, which is what
"American Pie" proved with its vague lyricism. Whenever I put on the
song now, I just bask in the complexity of it all and I remember when I
was younger, doing the same thing. Not much has changed and there will
always be the day the music died.
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