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That is the Song of Our Lives

Joseph Serwach
Leadership Culture
Published in
6 min readFeb 23, 2025

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Above: Associated Press newspaper clipping on The Day the Music Died, February 3, 1959, courtesy of the Vancouver Sun and Wikipedia Commons.
Above: Associated Press newspaper clipping on The Day the Music Died, February 3, 1959, courtesy of the Vancouver Sun and Wikipedia Commons.

Is “American Pie” the greatest song? Culture meets spirituality: “The Day the Music Died” inspired a documentary.

“This could, quite possibly, be the greatest song in music history,” Garth Brooks concludes. “No one’s ever written anything like it since.”

The song is so open-ended that anyone feels they can be part of its dream.

It’s called a new national anthem, a roadmap, a spiritual song making crowds closer. Think of that moment in Casablanca when the French come alive, singing their national anthem to drown out nasty Nazis.

Crowds have that sort of reaction when someone sings “American Pie.”

Brooks recalls being an unknown trying to sing songs for strangers, getting no attention until he started singing “American Pie.”

Everyone would stop and join in: “They didn’t know who this guy was, but they did know he was singing the greatest song in history.”

“American Pie,” the first long song (eight-and-a-half minutes) to hit №1, inspired generations starting in 1972 with its simple tune and powerful poetic prose that tells the story of the most turbulent times.

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Joseph Serwach
Joseph Serwach

Written by Joseph Serwach

Story + Identity = Mission. Leadership Culture, Journalism, Branding Education. Inspiration: Catholic, Polish. https://medium.com/@serwachjoe

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