Happy 70th Birthday, Don McLean!

Is it me, or is everyone turning 70?! First Ian Gillan, then Bryan Ferry and now Don McLean is celebrating the big birthday landmark.

I toyed with the idea of recording one of McLean’s lesser known songs for this blog post; the beautiful Vincent, based on Van Gogh’s painting 'The Starry Night', or perhaps Wonderful Baby, a lullaby that used to send me to sleep as a small child. But considering this is a music education blog, there was only one choice of track. The song that shot McLean into every music hall of fame (yes, all eight and a half minutes of it)… It had to be American Pie.

Where to start explaining a song like this? Personally, it has great importance to my upbringing. My mum made me a cassette compilation when I was very little, which acted almost as a musical bible to me, and I listened to it relentlessly at home with her and on long car journeys. Amongst all the tracks though, American Pie stood out to me, and I remember feeling a great sense of achievement when I finally learnt all the words (before I even hit my teens, I must point out). The lyrics painted obscure and fantastical scenes like I could never have imagined, and all in effortless rhyme.

It would take me years to relay all the ways in which the song’s lyrics have been interpreted since its release in 1971, but let’s start with the facts. “The day the music died” is 3rd February 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J P “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash in Iowa. At the time, the 13 year old McLean was on his paper round when he read the shocking news on the front page. A huge Holly fan, McLean has recalled his disappointment that none of his school friends seemed to share the same upset. When it came to writing American Pie, this vivid memory was a great starting point. McLean wanted to write a political song about America, but knew he couldn’t bring out another slow song, so decided to give it its upbeat rhythm. Apparently it was the chorus that came first, then one morning he woke up and wrote all five verses (how’s that for productivity?).

McLean has never been too keen on pinning down anything other interpretations of the lyrics, favouring instead to leave it up to the listener (when asked in 1991 what American Pie means, he simply answered “It means I don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to”). It’ll have different meaning to different people, but here are some common ideas:

The Jester - Bob Dylan.
“A coat he borrowed from James Dean” - On the cover of The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, he wears a jacket similar to that of the actor’s.
“And a voice that came from you and me” - A reference to the folk songs sung by Dylan.
“With the jester on the sidelines in a cast” - Dylan had recently broken his leg in a motorbike accident!
“And while the king was looking down the jester stole his thorny crown” - Dylan taking Elvis’ place as America’s most successful artist. The “King and Queen” could also refer to folk royalty Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. Another alternative is that the King, Queen and Jester were in fact President Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, as Oswald was never convicted because he was murdered shortly after the assassination (“The courtroom was adjourned / No verdict was returned”).

“Helter skelter in a summer swelter” - The Charles Manson massacre of 1968.

“The birds flew off from a fallout shelter / Eight miles high and falling fast” - The Byrds’ track Eight Miles High. A “fallout shelter” was a 60s term for a drug rehabilitation facility and one band member had recently been admitted.

“And as I watched him on the stage / My hands were clenched in fists of rage / No angel born in hell / Could break that Satan spell / As the flames climbed high into the night” - The Rolling Stones’ concert at Altamonte where the security were made up of Hell’s Angels, one of which stabbed an audience member. There are many possible Rolling Stones connections in the song - “Jack Flash sat on a candle stick”, “Moss grows fat on a rolling stone”, “Fire is the devil’s only friend” - although these all carry double meanings.

“The sergeants played a marching tune” - Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band apparently had a strong influence on McLean when writing American Pie.

“I met a girl who sang the blues…” - Janis Joplin, who died of an overdose the previous year (look out for a blog post marking the occasion coming this Sunday).

“And while Lenin/Lennon read a book on Marx” - most obviously Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, but others believe this could be John Lennon and Groucho Marx!

“The quartet practiced in the park” - The Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium.

“We sang dirges in the dark” - The 60s peace marches.

“The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost” - Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper, though of course this could be one of McLean’s references to religion, being a catholic himself.

So there you have it. Don’t tell me you haven’t learnt something new today! Enjoy showing off these fun facts and, if you’ve got the time, enjoy my rendition too...