The Day The Music Kept Us Guessing

Everyone talked about AMERICAN PIE and what it meant

It was 1971 that Don McLean released one of the greatest, confusing, symbolic, songs ever to be played on the radio for the full 8 minutes and 33 seconds.

I was 16 years old. I had just gotten my drivers license. And I knew I couldn’t get out of the car until the song was over (to make a comparison, later on in life, it would be like getting out of the car during BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY. You never did that, either). Chicago DJs argued about the symbolism of the song. The references, they claimed, were obviously The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, etc., but one thing was for sure. The day the music died was when Buddy Holly’s small private plane went down in the middle of winter in Iowa, killing him, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens on February 3, 1959. I was 3 years old (not 4 until July). I can’t say I was hugely affected by the occurrence when it happened; but I was affected when Don McLean sang American Pie.

Thanks to Don McLean, I now know what a ‘levy’ is, although I don’t know why anyone would drive their Chevy there.

It was still AM radio I was listening to, and the likes of Dick Biondi, John (Records truly is my middle name)Landecker, and Larry Lujack, the DJs in Chicago who always used as a tease that after this break, they were going to talk about and explain the lyrics of AMERICAN PIE. It always worked. No one changed the channel, and there were dozens of interpretations to sift through. It was like an open wound and everyone wanted the definitive analyzation. You know…for closure.

I remember arguing and discussing the lyrics with my friends, wondering all the time why he couldn’t have just written whatever the fuck he meant. I wasn’t one of those supposedly cool kids who didn’t care; who said they didn’t even like the song. I was more honest, and not ashamed of it, either.

McLean never really fully told us what every nuance and symbolic reference was contained in the song. He said it was poetry. It was up to the listener. That option actually had a profound effect on me. It was my first experience with “everything doesn’t always have to be cut and dried.”

I heard the song today (obviously), and the rush of memories flooded my cranium. Every Baby Boomer in the world remembers where they were, what they were doing, and what they think to this day is the meaning of the lyrics.

McLean said it was poetry.

Huh.