Don McLean Looks Back At His Masterpiece, "American Pie"

[TTL News 318]

Quote

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Don McLean has listened for decades as people belted out his classic song “American Pie” at last call or at karaoke — and applauds you for the effort.

“I’ve heard whole bars burst into this song when I’ve been across the room,” McLean tells The Associated Press from a tour bus heading to Des Moines, Iowa. “And they’re so happy singing it that I realized, ‘You don’t really have to worry about how well you sing this song anymore. Even sung badly, people are really happy with it.’”

Happy might be a bit of an understatement. “American Pie” is considered a masterpiece, voted among the top five Songs of the Century compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

McLean — and his singular tune about “the day the music died” — are now the subject of a full-length feature documentary, “The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie,’” airing Tuesday on Paramount+.

It’s mandatory viewing for McLean fans or anyone who has marveled at his sonic treasure. It also represents an elegant film blueprint for future deep dives into a song and its wider cultural relevance.

For those fans who have wondered about the lyrics they are singing loudly in bars and cars, McLean shares the secrets. “That was the fun of writing the song,” he tells the AP. “I was up at night, smiling and thinking about what I’m going to do with this.”

The documentary starts when a single-engine plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Jiles P. Richardson, the “Big Bopper,” plunged into a cornfield north of Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 3, 1959, killing the three stars and their pilot.

McLean was 13, living in a suburban, middle class home in New Rochelle, New York, when the crash occurred. He had bronchial asthma, prompting the description of him in “American Pie” as “a lonely teenage broncin’ buck.” The “sacred store” he sings about was the House of Music on Main Street, where he bought records and his first guitar.

 

Read the rest here.

[Chris 2,225]

I’ll have to get a look at this some time. Just what I read from the article was interesting enough to make me want to know more.

[Hal 343]

An interesting read for Don McLean fans I know it was at least for me . American pie and Vincent are two of his most Iconic songs !