"American Pie" is a song by American singer and songwriterDon McLean. Recorded and released in 1971 on thealbum of the same name, the single was the number-one US hit for four weeks in 1972 starting January 15[3] after just eight weeks on the USBillboard charts (where it entered at number 69).[4] The song also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, the single reached number 2, where it stayed for three weeks on its original 1971 release, and a reissue in 1991 reached No. 12. The song was listed as the No. 5 song on theRIAA projectSongs of the Century. A truncated version of the song was covered byMadonna in 2000 and reached No. 1 in at least 15 countries, including the UK, Canada, and Australia. At 8 minutes and 42 seconds, McLean's combined version is the sixth longest song to enter theBillboard Hot 100 (at the time of release it was the longest). The song also held the record for almost 50 years for being the longest song to reach number one[5] beforeTaylor Swift's "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" broke the record in 2021.[6] Due to its exceptional length, it was initially released as a two-sided7-inch single.[7] "American Pie" has been described as "one of the most successful and debated songs of the 20th century".[8]
The repeated phrase "the day the music died" refers to a plane crash in 1959 that killed early rock and roll starsBuddy Holly,The Big Bopper, andRitchie Valens, ending the era ofearly rock and roll; this became the popular nickname for that crash. The theme of the song goes beyond mourning McLean's childhood music heroes, reflecting the deep cultural changes and profound disillusion and loss of innocence of his generation[8] – the early rock and roll generation – that took place between the 1959 plane crash and eitherlate 1969[9] orlate 1970.[10][11] The meaning of the other lyrics, which cryptically allude to many of the jarring events and social changes experienced during that period, has been debated for decades. McLean repeatedly declined to explain the symbolism behind the many characters and events mentioned; he eventually released his songwriting notes to accompany the original manuscript when it was sold in 2015, explaining many of these. McLean further elaborated on the lyrical meaning in a 2022 documentary celebrating the song's 50th anniversary, in which he stated the song was driven byimpressionism, and debunked some of the more widely speculated symbols.
In 2017, McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in theNational Recording Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[12] To mark the 50th anniversary of the song, McLean performed a 35-date tour through Europe, starting in Wales and ending in Austria, in 2022.[13]
I first found out about the plane crash because I was a 13-year-old newspaper delivery boy in New Rochelle, New York, and I was carrying the bundle of the localStandard-Star papers that were bound in twine, and when I cut it open with a knife, there it was on the front page.
McLean reportedly wrote "American Pie" inSaratoga Springs, New York, at Caffè Lena, but a 2011New York Times article quotes McLean as disputing this claim.[15] Some employees at Caffè Lena claim that he started writing the song there, and then continued to write the song in bothCold Spring, New York,[16] andPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania.[17] McLean claims that the song was only written in Cold Spring and Philadelphia.[15] Tin & Lint, a bar on Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs, claims the song was written there, and a plaque marks the table. While a 2022 documentary on the history of the song claimsSaint Joseph's University as where the song was first performed,[18][19] McLean insists that the song made its debut in Philadelphia atTemple University[15] when he opened forLaura Nyro on March 14, 1971.[17]
The song was produced by Ed Freeman and recorded with a few session musicians. Freeman did not want McLean to play rhythm guitar on the song but eventually relented. McLean and the session musicians rehearsed for two weeks but failed to get the song right. At the last minute, the pianistPaul Griffin was added, which is when the tune came together.[20] McLean used a 1969 or 1970Martin D-28 guitar to provide the basic chords throughout "American Pie".[21]
The song debuted on the albumAmerican Pie in October 1971 and was released as a single in November. The song's eight-and-a-half-minute length meant that it could not fit entirely on one side of the45 RPM record, so United Artists had the first4:11 taking up the A-side of the record and the final4:31 the B-side. Radio stations initially played the A-side of the song only, but soon switched to the full album version to satisfy their audiences.[22]
Upon the single release,Cash Box called it "folk-rock's most ambitious and successful epic endeavor since 'Alice's Restaurant.'"[23]Record World called it a "monumental accomplishment of lyric writing".[24]
The sense of disillusion and loss that the song transmits isn't just about deaths in the world of music, but also about a generation that could no longer believe in the utopian dreams of the 1950s... According to McLean, the song represents a shift from the naïve and innocent '50s to the darker decade of the '60s
Don called his song a complicated parable, open to different interpretations. "People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity. Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time."
The song has nostalgic themes,[26] stretching from the late 1950s until late 1969 or 1970. Except to acknowledge that he first learned aboutBuddy Holly's death on February 3, 1959 – McLean was age 13 – when he was folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 4, 1959 (hence the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"), McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song's lyrics; he has said: "They're beyond analysis. They're poetry."[27] He also stated in an editorial published in 2009, on the 50th anniversary of thecrash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson (all of whom are alluded to in the final verse in a comparison with the ChristianHoly Trinity), that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death and that he considers the song to be "a big song... that summed up the world known as America".[28] McLean dedicated theAmerican Pie album to Holly.
Some commentators have identified the song as outlining the darkening of cultural mood, as over time the cultural vanguard passed fromPete Seeger andJoan Baez (the "King and Queen" of folk music), then fromElvis Presley (known as "the King" of Rock and Roll), toBob Dylan ("the Jester" – who wore a jacket similar to that worn bycultural iconJames Dean, was known as "the voice of his generation" ("a voice that came from you and me"),[29] and whosemotorcycle accident ("in a cast") left him in reclusion for many years, recording in studios rather than touring ("on the sidelines"), tothe Beatles (John Lennon, punned withVladimir Lenin, and "the Quartet" – although McLean has stated the Quartet is a reference to other people[7]), tothe Byrds (who wrote one of the firstpsychedelic rock songs, "Eight Miles High", and then "fell fast" – the song was banned, band memberGene Clark enteredrehabilitation, known colloquially as a "fallout shelter", and shortly after, the group declined as it lost members, changed genres, and alienated fans), tothe Rolling Stones (who releasedTheir Satanic Majesties Request and the singles "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Sympathy for the Devil" ("Jack Flash", "Satan", "The Devil"), and used theHells Angels – "Angels born in Hell" – asAltamont event security, withfatal consequences, bringing the 1960s to a violent end[30]), and toJanis Joplin (the "girl who sang the blues" but just "turned away" – she died of aheroin overdose the following year).
Many additional and alternative interpretations have also been proposed.
For example, Bob Dylan's first performance in Great Britain was also at a pub called "The King and Queen", and he also appeared more literally "on the sidelines in a (the) cast" – as one of many starsat the back far right of the cover art of the Beatles' albumSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ("the Sergeants played a marching tune").[33]
The song title itself is a reference toapple pie, an unofficialsymbol of the United States and one of its signaturecomfort foods,[37] as seen in the popular expression "As American as apple pie".[38] By the twentieth century, this had become a symbol of American prosperity and national pride.[38]
The originalUnited Artists Records inner sleeve featured afree verse poem written by McLean aboutWilliam Boyd, also known asHopalong Cassidy, along with a picture of Boyd in full Hopalong regalia. Its inclusion in the album was interpreted to represent a sense of loss of a simplistic type of American culture as symbolized by Hopalong Cassidy and by extensionblack and white television as a whole.[39]
Mike Mills ofR.E.M. reflected: "'American Pie' just made perfect sense to me as a song and that's what impressed me the most. I could say to people this is how to write songs. When you've written at least three songs that can be considered classic that is a very high batting average and if one of those songs happens to be something that a great many people think is one of the greatest songs ever written you've not only hit the top of the mountain but you've stayed high on the mountain for a long time."[40]
For McLean, the song is a blueprint of his mind at the time and a homage to his musical influences, but also a roadmap for future students of history:
"If it starts young people thinking about Buddy Holly, about rock 'n' roll and that music, and then it teaches them maybe about what else happened in the country, maybe look at a little history, maybe ask why John Kennedy was shot and who did it, maybe ask why all our leaders were shot in the 1960s and who did it, maybe start to look at war and the stupidity of it — if that can happen, then the song really is serving a wonderful purpose and a positive purpose."
Mark Kennedy, "Don McLean looks back at his masterpiece, 'American Pie'" (2022) [20]
When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean jokingly replied, "It means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to."[41] Later, he stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."[42] He also commented on the popularity of his music, "I didn't write songs that were just catchy, but with a point of view, or songs about the environment."
In February 2015, however, McLean announced he would reveal the meaning of the lyrics to the song when the original manuscript went for auction in New York City, in April 2015.[43] The lyrics and notes were auctioned on April 7, 2015, and sold for $1.2 million.[44] In the sale catalogue notes, McLean revealed the meaning in the song's lyrics: "Basically in 'American Pie' things are heading in the wrong direction. It [life] is becoming less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense."[45] The catalogue confirmed that the song climaxes with a description of thekilling of Meredith Hunter at theAltamont Free Concert, ten years after the plane crash that killed Holly, Valens, and Richardson, and did acknowledge that some of the more well-known symbols in the song were inspired by figures such asElvis Presley ("the king") andBob Dylan ("the jester").[45]
In 2017, Bob Dylan was asked about how he was referenced in the song. "A jester? Sure, the jester writes songs like 'Masters of War', 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall', 'It's Alright, Ma' – some jester. I have to think he's talking about somebody else. Ask him."[46]
In 2022, the documentaryThe Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean's American Pie, produced by Spencer Proffer, was released on theParamount+ video on-demand service. Proffer said that he told McLean: "It's time for you to reveal what 50 years of journalists have wanted to know." McLean stated that he "needed a big song about America", and the first verse and melody ("A long, long time ago...") seemed to just come to mind.[20]
McLean also answered some of the long-standing questions on the song's lyrics, although not all. He revealed that Presley was not the king referenced in the song, Joplin was not the "girl who sang the blues", and Dylan was not the jester, although he is open to other interpretations.[47] He explained that the "marching band" refers to themilitary–industrial complex, "sweet perfume" refers to tear gas, and Los Angeles is the "coast" that the Trinity head to ("caught the last train for the coast"), commenting "even God has been corrupted". He also said that the line "This'll be the day that I die" originated from theJohn Wayne filmThe Searchers (which inspired Buddy Holly's song "That'll Be the Day"), and the chorus's line "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" was inspired by a song byPete Seeger, "Bye Bye, My Roseanna". McLean had originally intended to use "Miss American apple pie", but "apple" was dropped.[20]
On the whole, McLean stated that the lyrics were meant to beimpressionist, and that many of the lyrics, only a portion of which were included in the finished recording, were completely fictional with no basis in real-life events.[47]
The final chorus features multi-tracked backing vocals, credited in the album's sleeve notes to the "West Forty Fourth Street Rhythm and Noise Choir". Although the individual choristers have never been publicly named, producer Ed Freeman has claimed that the choir includedPete Seeger,James Taylor,Livingston Taylor andCarly Simon.[50]
In 1999,"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and recorded a parody of "American Pie". Titled "The Saga Begins", the song recounts the plot ofStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace fromObi-Wan Kenobi's point of view. While McLean gave permission for the parody, he did not make a cameo appearance in its video, despite popular rumor. McLean himself praised the parody, even admitting to almost singing Yankovic's lyrics during his own live performances because his children played the song so often.[74][75] An unrelatedcomedy film franchise byUniversal Pictures, who secured the rights to McLean's title, also debuted in 1999.[76]
"American Pie" was the last song to be played on Virgin Radio before it was rebranded asAbsolute Radio in 2008.[77] It was also the last song played onBFBS Malta in 1979.[citation needed]
In 2012, theCity of Grand Rapids, Michigan, created alip dub video to "American Pie" in response to aNewsweek article that stated the city was "dying".[78] (Due to licensing issues, the version used in the video was not the original, but rather a later-recorded live version.) The video was hailed as a fantastic performance by many, including film criticRoger Ebert, who said it was "the greatest music video ever made".[79]
In 2013,Harmonix announced that "American Pie" would be the finaldownloadable track made available for theRock Band series of music video games.[80] This was the case untilRock Band 4 was released in 2015, reviving the series' downloadable content.
On March 14, 2015, theNational Museum of Mathematics announced that one of two winners of its songwriting contest was "American Pi" by mathematics education professor Dr. Lawrence M. Lesser.[81] The contest was in honor of "Pi Day of the Century" because "3/14/15" would be the only day in the 21st-century showing the first five digits ofπ (pi).
In 2021, McLean released a re-recording of "American Pie" featuring lead vocals by country a cappella groupHome Free.[83]
In 2023, during his visit to the United States, South Korean PresidentYoon Suk-yeol sang the song at astate dinner.[84] Afterwards Don McLean humorously offered to perform a duet version with Suk-yeol.[85]
American singerMadonna recorded a cover version of "American Pie" for the soundtrack of her filmThe Next Best Thing (2000). Her cover is much shorter than the original, containing only the beginning of the first verse and all of the second and sixth verses. Reworked as adance-pop track, it was produced by Madonna andWilliam Orbit. It was recorded in September 1999 in New York City, afterRupert Everett, Madonna's co-star inThe Next Best Thing, convinced her to cover the song for the film's soundtrack.[90][91] Madonna said of her choice to cover the song: "To me, it's a real millennium song. We're going through a big change in terms of the way we view pop culture, because of the Internet. In a way, it's like saying goodbye to music as we knew it—and to pop culture as we knew it."[92] "American Pie" was released as thelead single fromThe Next Best Thing on February 8, 2000, byMaverick Records andWarner Bros. Records.[93]
"American Pie" was later included as an international bonus track on her eighth studio album,Music (2000). However, it was not included on her greatest hits compilationGHV2 (2001), as Madonna had regretted putting it onMusic, elaborating: "It was something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing, but it didn't belong on the album so now it's being punished... My gut told me not to [put the song onMusic], but I did it and then I regretted it so just for that reason it didn't deserve a place onGHV2".[94][95] A remix of the song was featured on her remix compilation albumFinally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones (2022).
"American Pie" was an international hit, reaching number one in numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Finland. The song was the 19th-best-selling single of 2000 in the UK and the ninth best-selling single of 2000 in Sweden. The single was not released commercially in the United States, but it reached number 29 on theBillboard Hot 100 due to strong radio airplay.
Despite the commercial success, the cover received mixed to unfavorable reviews from music critics. Chuck Taylor ofBillboard was impressed by the recording and commented, "Applause to Madonna for not pandering to today's temporary trends and for challenging programmers to broaden their playlists. ... In all, a fine preview of the forthcoming soundtrack toThe Next Best Thing."[96]Peter Robinson ofThe Guardian called the cover as "brilliant".[97] Don McLean himself praised the cover, saying it was "a gift from a goddess", and that her version is "mystical and sensual".[98]NME, on the other hand, gave it a negative review, saying that "Killdozer did it first and did it better", that it was "sub-karaoke fluff" and that "it's a blessing she didn't bother recording the whole thing."[99] It was rated number 3 in both a 2011Rolling Stone reader poll and a 2023A.V. Club article ranking the worst cover songs of all time. It was the only song to appear in the top five on both lists.[100][101]
In 2017, theOfficial Charts Company stated the song had sold 400,000 copies in the United Kingdom and was her 16th best selling single to date in the nation.[102]
The music video, filmed in the southern United States and in London,[103] and directed byPhilipp Stölzl, depicts a diverse array of ordinary Americans, including scenes showing same-sex couples kissing. Throughout the music video Madonna, who is wearing a tiara on her head, dances and sings in front of a large American flag.[104]
Two versions of the video were produced, the first of which was released as the official video worldwide, and later appeared on Madonna'sCelebration: The Video Collection (2009). The second version used the "Humpty Remix", a more upbeat and dance-friendly version of the song. The latter aired onMTV in the US to promoteThe Next Best Thing; it features different footage and new outtakes of the original while omitting the lesbian kiss. Everett, who provides backing vocals in the song, is also featured in the video.
^Songfacts: American PieArchived June 9, 2021, at theWayback Machine: States that "The line, 'I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away,' is probably about Janis Joplin. She died of a drug overdose in 1970."
^Dondoni, Luca (July 27, 2000)."Madonna si lancia nello spazio".La Stampa (in Italian) (203): 25.Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2021.«American Pie» che come singolo presente nella colonna sonora del film «The next big thing» solo nel nostro paese ha venduto ben 70 mila copie
Adams, Cecil (May 15, 1993)."What is Don McLean's song 'American Pie' all about?".The Straight Dope. Chicago Reader, Inc. RetrievedJune 8, 2009. An interpretation of the lyrics based on a supposed interview of McLean by DJCasey Kasem. McLean later confirmed the Buddy Holly reference in a letter to Adams but denied ever speaking to Kasem.
Roteman, Jeff (August 10, 2002)."Bob Dearborn's Original Analysis of Don McLean's 1971 Classic 'American Pie'". This article correlates McLean's biography with the historic events in the song. McLean pointed toWCFL (Chicago, Illinois) radio disc jockey Bob Dearborn as the partial basis for most mainstream interpretations of "American Pie". Dearborn's analysis, mailed to listeners on request, bears the date January 7, 1972. Roteman's reprinting added photos but replaced the date January 7, 1972, by an audio link bearing the date February 28, 1972, the date Dearborn aired his interpretation on WCFL (http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/bobpie.ram (Bob Dearborn's American Pie Analysis original broadcast February 28, 1972)).
"The WCFL Radio Tribute Page". Archived fromthe original on October 26, 2018. RetrievedOctober 25, 2018. Among the potpourri is a copy of the January 7, 1972, Bob Dearborn letter, plus an audio recording, in which he delineates his interpretation of "American Pie".
Fann, Jim."Understanding American Pie". Archived fromthe original on September 6, 2003. Historically oriented interpretation of "American Pie". The interpretation was specifically noted on in an archived version of McLean's website page on "American Pie".archived version of McLean's website page on "American Pie". The material, dated November 2002, includes a recording ofDinah Shore singing "See The USA In Your Chevrolet" and a photograph ofMick Jagger in costume at the Altamont Free Concert with aHells Angel member in the background.
Kulawiec, Rich (August 26, 2001)."FAQ: The Annotated 'American Pie'".Archived from the original on April 19, 2003. RetrievedSeptember 19, 2007. FAQ maintained by Rich Kulawiec, started in 1992 and essentially completed in 1997.
.JPG)
.jpg)
