American Pie: The Day the Music Died

Countless articles exist explaining the lyrics to Don McLean's American Pie. Before anyone further examines this elusive poem, I suggest they learn more about the first twenty six years of McLean's life. McLean's life is not that elusive.

From his own website we learn that McLean's father died when he was fifteen, and that he was heavily influenced by the music of many folk singers noted for their radical politics.  In fact some of them were cited as Communists by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. (HUAC)

By this time, Don's musical focus was very much on folk, thanks, in part, to The Weavers landmark 1955 recording "Live at Carnegie Hall". ..After managing to get his home number from the telephone directory, Don phoned Erik Darling...

... performed at venues like the Bitter End and Gaslight Café in New York, the Newport Folk Festival... He appeared with such artists as Herbie Mann, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Melanie, Steppenwolf, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Josh White, Ten Wheel Drive and others. This was the start of Don McLean’s career as a professional singer, songwriter, musician and performer.

These performers and locations were a hot bed for political radicals.

The Wikipedia post is helpful

He learned the art of performing from his friend and mentor Pete Seeger. McLean accompanied Seeger on his Clearwater boat up the Hudson River in 1969 to protest environmental pollution in the river. The Clearwater campaign was widely credited for improving water quality in the Hudson River.

Finally there is a mention from Fiftiesweb.com: McLean had attended several Catholic schools.

McLean was a radical, but not just any radical. He was a Catholic radical. An understanding of Daniel and Tom Berrigan and their brothers is helpful. Catholic radicals can be more militant, more uncompromising and more demanding on themselves.  I witnessed this over and over again in the 1960's and 1970's as the left debated issues of conscious and morality. It should be understood that radical in the context of 'Catholic radical' is more a statement of principle than a drive to revolution.

While other radicals might support an end to the war in Vietnam, Catholic radicals frequently took peaceful but illegal steps to physically stop the war machine. While other radicals supported the civil rights movements, Catholics  were at the forefront, with Jews, in risking their lives in the Deep South.

The Analysis

I am not going to provide a line-by-line critique of American Pie. Others have adequately demonstrated that American Pie was not the name of the airplane that crashed in that Mason City, Iowa cornfield killing Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.

The references to Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stone, and the Beatles are accurate.

There is no question that McLean was distressed by the new direction for music that grew out of folk music. McLean was probably disappointed that Bob Dylan abandoned the mantle of Pete Seeger as the new generation's folk singer. The Rolling Stones disappointed millions of us when they flirted with violence and made their pact with the Hell's Angels at Altamont.

As for the Beatles, their music was the worst of the 1960's for dancing. It was never played at parties. Never. But worse, the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and even Dylan smothered the music that nurtured McLean (and other's) in the 1950's.  Not just the folk music, but the blues and all the music compiled by the Alan Lomax.

I doubt McLean disdains any of these great artists. I am sure that he would laud John Lennon's contributions to world peace. But they had all tampered with not just Mclean's music, but the people's music. All of this is reinforced in the line: And a voice that came from you and me,

The Day

To understand American Pie is to understand that the Day was more than February 3, 1959. The day was the decade that followed. It was the day at Altamont, the day of the Gulf of Tonkin, the day of each and every assassination and inner city riot. A day is not limited to twenty four hours.

The Music

The music is not just the music of the crash victims. It is the music of Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Leadbelly, or some unknown man in Appalachia or a woman in a city ghetto strumming on a battered guitar. But the music is bigger than all of that. It is American culture and America's soul.

The day the music died. A decade of frustration, betrayal, and lying as McLean rightly feared were thrown into the chaos of the past forty years. We lost our soul.

The father, son and the holy ghost... I don't know if that is the three dead musicians, a true religious statement , or reference to Rev, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and JFK (and in that order, not the order of their assassinations). Maybe it is all of them.

Drove my chevy to the levee... I cannot believe, given the upbringing and politics of McLean, that no matter how many meanings this has, at least one of the them is a direct reference to James Earl Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were murdered on June 21, 1964 ... disappeared on the night of June 21. Their bodies were found in a an earthen levee.

Good old boys were drinkin... I have trouble with this line; context is everything. If you said 'Good old boys' in the 1960's the only thing that comes to mind is smoked filled rooms, with men of questionable scruples.   I opt for southern lynch mobs, not a bunch of musical scoundrels.

While the sergeants played a marching tune.. and ...The marching band refused to yield Marching bands are closer, culturally, to militarism than the rock and folk music of the day. This is a reference to 'bad music' oppressing we who got up to dance.'

American Pie could be nothing more than a poetic contraction of As American As Apple Pie.

Additional references to the lyrics:

Bob Dearborn's Original Analysis from February 28, 1972

Bill Griggs from July, 1985

Explainthelyrics.com

The Octopuss's Garden

Songfacts

Brendan's American Pie Archive-reference to some of the above and more.

www.imissamericanpie.com

Comments

[Tim Morrissey]

Well said, sir!!! I, too, have always thought the "levee" reference was the civil rights murders, Paul. Great line about a day not being "24 hours", but I'm not sure about the "good old boys" being a lynch mob. Worth thinking about, though. Great analysis.

When our station "The Tux" changes from oldies like Perry Como and Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams, and Ben Benedetti has REALLY retired - and we start playing oldies like Don McClean and Bob Dylan - I'm going to lobby you to do a regular show about stuff like this post.

LOVED your point about Beatles songs after the first couple albums, not being played at parties - couldn't DANCE to it!!

You need to start doing a lot more than election night analysis and political commentary on radio, Paul.

/tjm

[Barry Orton]

Noooo, Tim, don't encourage him! Next you'll get 2500 words on the deeper meanings of "In A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

[Skip]

How exactly did the bands mentioned "smother" the American folk music of the South and the blues? Without them and others (The Beatles excepted), I suspect that Alan Lomax's field recordings would have remained Library of Congress curiosities and the blues musicians we venerate now would have died in obscurity were it not for rock bands covering the songs and talking about the musicians in interviews. I think of how it was through the efforts of The Rolling Stones that Howlin' Wolf appeared on Shindig in 1965. Many blues musicians went from playing the south side of Chicago to touring the world in the 1960s/70s and the audiences became much larger and whiter. If it weren't for the Eric Claptons and Mick Jaggers telling their fans to go check out the "real thing", I doubt this would have ever happened. Instead of being smothered by rock bands, it was the rock bands who brought the folk and blues to larger audiences.

[Brad Clark]

I do believe that the "Sergeants played a marching tune" refers at least in part to "Sergeant Pepper..."

[DJ]

Fascinating. Thanks. It brings back memories of the first classified case study we reviewed during counter-intelligence training in 1957. It was the complete dossier on Guthrie, Seeger and The Weavers.

[Paul]

Skip, when you say, "I think of how it was through the efforts of The Rolling Stones that Howlin' Wolf appeared on Shindig in 1965. Many blues musicians went from playing the south side of Chicago to touring the world in the 1960s/70s and the audiences became much larger and whiter," you are 100% correct.

But I think two things need to be kept in mind. First, McLean was writing in 1970-71 and by then folk music was already on the decline. And he was right, there were no folk performers into the 60's and 70's to rival the Weavers, Pete Seeger, or even Josh White. And of course, the day of millions of American attending folk concerts was over.

Secondly, you are correct, the old blues players from Chicago's Sutherland Hotel (46th and Drexel, we lived at 44th and Drexel in the early 50's), did get the wider audiences you described. Many (Luther Allison, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, played in college towns like Madison to white audiences) continued to play, some into the 1990's.

But even by 1970, but for some exceptional guitarist, most of their heirs had forsaken the music for the sanitized Motown sound. Even Atco and Stax were in trouble.

[your favorite cousin]

Paul,
Can you tell me the meaning of Elton John's song "Take me to the pilot"?