Don McLean reveals some of the secrets behind 'American Pie' in a new Paramount+ documentary
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The meaning behind Don McLean's internationally recognized "American Pie" has stumped listeners for decades.
The 1971 hit about the "day the music died," has become one of the most celebrated songs in popular music, voted among the top five songs of the century, according to the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. But its rich vault of cultural references has left people debating the song's deeper meaning.
McLean is sharing some of his secrets behind his eight-and-a-half minute acoustic epic in a 90-minute documentary, “The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie,’” airing Tuesday on Paramount+.
"That was the fun of writing the song," he told the Associated Press. "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,” crashes into a cornfield north of Clear Lake on Feb. 3, 1959, killing the three stars.
More: What to know about Buddy Holly and ‘the day the music died’ in Iowa
Holly, Valens and Richardson were on the Midwestern-based Winter Dance Party Tour, each finding respective radio success with “That’ll be the Day,” “La Bamba” and “Chantilly Lace,” and had performed at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake the night before.
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.
Young McLean admired Elvis, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley but especially Holly, whose death deeply affected him. “I was in absolute shock. I may have actually cried,” he said in the film. "You can’t intellectualize it. It hurt me."
Years later, McLean would express the pain from the loss in "American Pie."
Holly offers a jumping-off point for the song, but “American Pie” isn’t about Holly, McLean previously told the Register.
The song, written in the midst of assassinations, anti-war protests and civil rights marches, is about America, he said.
"Buddy Holly’s death is what I used to try to write the biggest possible song I could write about America. And not a ‘This Land Is Your Land’ or 'America, the Beautiful' or something like that. I wanted to write a song that was completely brand new in its perspective."
McLean added: “(It was) this idea of being a rock 'n' roll dream, or a fantasy, of some sort. But it's a dream where things morph into other things.”
The documentary features '70s news footage and uses actors in recreations. It also features McLean visiting the Surf Ballroom, and includes interviews with musicians including Garth Brooks, "Weird Al" Yankovich and Brian Wilson.
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, he told the AP:
“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."
More: From the archives: Remembering Buddy Holly, the Iowa plane crash and the day the music died
“The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie,’” premieres exclusively on Paramount+ Tuesday both in the U.S. and internationally, where the service is available.
Contributing: Associated Press and USA Today reporter Matthew Leimkuehler.
Virginia Barreda is a trending and general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Paramount+ documentary explores meaning of Don McLean's 'American Pie'
