“American Pie” Lyrics – What Do They Mean?

AMERICAN PIE

Don McLean wrote the song
“American Pie” in 1971. What do the Lyrics mean?

Verse 1

A long, long time
ago…
American Pie was written in 1971 and the time McLean is going
to talk about is the 1950’s. This seems
like a long time ago ’cause of all the turmoil that occurred in
the 60’s.

I can still remember
how that music used to make me smile.
McLean’s favorite music was that of the 50’s.

And I knew if
I had my chance, that I could make those people dance, and maybe
they’d be happy for a while.
In the 50’s, the major purpose of music was for dancing (sock
hops). He wanted to play rock & roll so people could have
a good time.

But February made
me shiver
Buddy Holly died on February 3, 1959 in a plane crash in Iowa.
He was McLean’s hero.

With every paper
I’d deliver
Donny boy’s only other job besides songwriting was a paper boy.

Bad news on the
doorstep, I couldn’t take one more step
This story was obviously on the frickn’ front page and made McLean
freeze in his tracks.

I can’t remember
if I cried
He can’t remember if he cried.

When I read about
his widowed bride
Holly’s wife was pregnant when the accident occurred and soon
after had a miscarriage.

But something
touched me deep inside
I don’t even wanna know!

The day the music
died.
The crash took the lives of three current rock legends: Holly,
Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, so now Feb. 3, 1959 is called
“The day the music died.” The music that died is considered
the standard rock & roll songs. The crash was the final blow
(«–keyword) to this music ’cause these three were that
only major artists left. Elvis was drafted, Little Richard (or
“Little Dick”) turned gospel, and Chuck Berry was arrested
for screwin’ a prostitute.

Verse 2

Did you write
the book of love?
“The Book of Love” was a hit in 1968 by the Monotones.

And do you have
faith in God above, if the Bible tells you so?
In 1955, Don Cornell wrote “The Bible Tells Me So” and
there is a Sunday School song “Jesus Loves Me,” with
the line “For the Bible tells me so.”

Now do you believe
in rock & roll?
This is from the great song “Do You Believe in Magic?”
by the Lovin’ Spoonful, written by John Sebastin in 1965. One
of the lines is like trying to teach a stranger ’bout rock &
roll,” and another is “the magic’s in the music and
the music’s in me.” The “magic” this Johnny was
talking about is the ability of a song to stick in your head.
Often times songs bring back memories of the past, this is what
the magic is. This magic is especially in rock & roll, ’cause
you experience it without thinking about it or trying to analyze
the bloody lyrics (like some asshole is right now). Another lyric
is “so just blow your mind.” (Don’t think about it).

Can music save
your mortal soul?
Given all that, can music help you get though life? I’m sorry
I can’t answer that. All of these questions ask about life and
if God exists.

And, can you teach
me how to dance real slow?
Dancing in the 50’s wasn’t like it is today. If you danced with
someone, you then were committed to them.

Now I know that
you’re in love with him, ’cause I saw you dancing in the gym.
Like I said, dancing was serious shit. McLean caught his love
cheating on him.

You both kicked
off your shoes
Reference to a “sock hop.”

Man, I dig those
rhythm and blues
He’s depressed, and you listen to that kinda of music. There’s
a style of music for every feeling.

I was a lonely
teenage broncin’ buck
ummmm…..yeah, so was I……

With a pink carnation
and a pickup truck
A pickup truck was a symbol of sexual freedom (and it rhymes with
“buck” and “luck”), and Marty Robbins had
a hit with “A White sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation) in
1957.

But I knew I was
out of luck, the day the music died.
These old crazy things that worked in the fifty’s no longer work,
’cause the 60’s brought a new social revolution. Peace Out!

Verse 3

Now for ten years
we’ve been on our own

The music died 1959, McLean more than likely
started writing this song around 1969.

And moss grows
fat on a rolling stone
The great Bob Dylan wrote “Like a Rolling Stone” in
1965. This was his first MAJOR change from folk music. In late
1966, Dylan was involved in a motorcycle accident, and hid in
his house in Woodstock, NY for a good year, hence the “fat,”
and the moss shows the time change. Dylan didn’t really get his
muse back till 1975.

but that’s not
how it used to be.
McLean liked Dylan as a folk singer in the early sixties more
than his folk-rock style in the mid sixties. (I wonder what he
thinks of Dylan’s religious phase!)

When the jester
sang for the king and queen
Ok, the jester’s Bob Dylan. The king is Peter Seger and the queen
is Joan Baez. These were the two big names in folk at the time
early ’60’s). During the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, Dylan
was honored to play his own set and then combine with these two
legends to sing his song “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

In a coat he borrowed
from James Dean
In the Dean movie “Rebel Without A Cause,” he wears
a red windbreaker. On the cover of the Dylan’s “Freewheelin’,”
he is seen also in a red windbreaker. This cover also resembles
a famous picture of Dean. This ties in with the previous line
’cause this album is were Dylan really took off, with such songs
as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna
Fall.”

And a voice that
came from you and me.
This means two things. 1. Dylan was the spokesman for the 60’s
(and he was) and 2. He didn’t have the best singing voice in the
world, and even you and me could sing like him (but you could
write like him if Shakespeare «he’s in the alley»
himself told you what to say!)

Oh, and while
the king was looking down
This could mean two things; Pete Seger remained a traditional
folk singer, while Dylan was constantly reinvented himself and
therefore became unbelievably popular. This could also be a reference
to Elvis (the King of rock and roll), because he joined the U.S.
Army and reportedly dropped his soap everyday in the shower.

The jester stole
his thorny crown
While Elvis was in the army, Dylan took his spotlight and changed
the whole music business. The thorny crown is the price of fame,
and is referenced with Jesus’s thorny crown before he was murdered.

The courtroom
was adjourned, no verdict was returned
This deals with the Kennedy assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald was
never convicted because he was murdered.

And while Lennon
read a book of Marx
This is about the Beatles music becoming political. Songs like
“Revolution” (1968) (which actually mentions Chairman
Mao) were much different then “Love Me Do” (1963). Many
American adults thought the Beatles were bad for the American
youth, especially after Lennon’s remark in 1966 about Christianity.
He said “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink.
I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right.
We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go
first: rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.” This started anti-Beatles
burnings and such.

The quartet practiced
in the park
The quartet was the Beatles (there were four, not including if
Paul McCartney is really dead!) and the park thing is Candlestick
Park, the place of their last concert. It was practicing ’cause
their music would grow after they stopped touring (their first
project after this was “Sgt. Pepper” which is considered
the best album of all time).

And we sang dirges
in the dark, the day the music died.
A dirge is a funeral song. These songs were for the Kennedy’s
(John and Robert) and Martin Luther King, all who died in the
mid 60’s. And remember- “Dark” rhythms with “Park”

Verse 4

Helter Skelter
in a summer swelter
Charles Manson is one of the most dangerous cereal killers ever
(his favorite was coco-puffs). In the summer of 1968, he massacred
an entire family ’cause of the Beatles song “Helter Skelter,”
which appeared on the white album. He thought that the Beatles
were warning America about the racial conflict and it was “coming
down fast.” He thought the Beatles were the four angels mentioned
in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Manson wrote the title
of the song on the wall in blood after committing the murders.
Also, he thought in “Revolution 9” that Lennon was saying
“rise” instead of “right,” thought the line
“They need a damn good wacking” from “Piggies”
was telling him to kill people and the “Hollywood Song”
in “Honey Pie” was about him ’cause he lived near Hollywood.
He was dropping too much acid and thought the Beatles were talking
directly to him and told him to kill those people.

The Byrd flew
off with to a fallout shelter
The Byrd’s were a popular folk-rock group, with the huge cover
of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” in 1965. One of the
members was arrested for possession of marijuana and a fallout
shelter was another name for a rehab program. A strange note is
that Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” appeared on his “Bringing
It All Back Home” record, and on the lower left corner of
the cover is a fallout shelter sign.

Eight miles high
and falling fast.
“Eight Miles High” was the first ever psychedelic song
(it was written while high on speed, and the sound of the guitar
was supposed to sound like a saxophone). The falling fast part
is probably about the fact that the Byrd’s abandoned folk-rock
for country music with the album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,”
in 1967

Then landed in
the foul grass
Foul grass meaning marijuana.

The players tried
for a forward pass
Here the football metaphor starts. The players are the protesters
in the 60’s. The forward pass was their movement to change the
situation they were in, full of government corruption.

With the jester,
on the sidelines in a cast.
emember jester=Dylan. In late 1966, while riding near his house
in Woodstock, NY, he briefly glanced into the sun and lost control
of his bike. When he went to brake, they locked up on him and
sent him flying off the motorcycle. It took him about 9 months
to recover (or was he just pregnant and trying to hide it from
the world????), in which time he very rarely left the house, hence
the cast.

Now the half time
air was sweet perfume
Flower Power, groovy baby! Drugs, man, drugs.

While sergeants
played a marching tune
Sgt. Pepper, Beatles, 1967, recently named the most influencal
album of all time. First ever concept album. First to have lyrics
printed on the back. First to have a design on the protector of
the record. Included an elaborate cover design and cut-outs. As
far as the music goes, it had drug references in Lucy in the Sky
with Diamonds, sitars, animal sounds and studio trickery. In the
song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” at one point
in the sound the engineer was instructed to cut the tape into
small pieces, scatter them around, then tape them back together.
In “A Day in the Life” (which was banned from the radio
’cause of the drug reference line “I’d Love to Turn You On”),
after the piano cords die out, there is a minute of silence, followed
by a high pitched sound (by the request of John Lennon, especially
to annoy the family dog), then a loop of Beatles gibberish to
make the owners of the LP think that the needle had stuck! What
was I talking about again?

We all got up
to dance, but we never got the chance
Oh yeah, American Pie!! That’s a good song…anyway, the Beatles
helped to start a new kind of music that was meant to be listened
and not danced to (how do you dance to “Within You and Without
You”?).

‘Cause the players
tried to take the field
Players=Protesters. In 1968, at the Chicago Democratic convention,
protesters rioted, and some were beaten by the police. It is now
known as the days of rage. Also in 1970, at Kent State University,
four students were killed by the National Guard in response to
their anti-Vietnam protests, which inspired the song “Ohio”
by CSN & Neil Young.

The marching band
refused to yield
The Beatles had some anti-violence songs that made protesters
think twice about the way they were acting. “All You Need
is Love” (1967) says there is a better way then violence,
and in “Revolution” (1968) one of the lines is “But
when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count
me out.” The beatles were in no way pro-government (as seen
in 1968’s “Piggies,” which is about Congressmen), but
they were against violence.

Do you recall
what was revealed, the day the music died.
So what was revealed? …well look at today, the president gets
more ass then a toilet seat. As Dr. Evil says in Austin Powers,
“Face it, freedom failed” or more accurately, the protests
failed. The government is more corrupt now then ever before. McLean
wasn’t a big 60’s fan and here is putting down the efforts of
the failed generation.

Verse 5

And then we were
all in one place
Woodstock Performing Arts Festival took place in August in 1969.
400,000 of McLean’s generation were there. It took place at Woodstock
(actually Bethel) because that’s were Dylan was hiding, and they
were hoping he would come out and play. Unfortunately he turned
it down for the “Isle of Wright” concert.

A generation lost
in space
The moon landing was of course in 1969, David Bowie’s “Space
Oddity” was released (which was about ‘major Tom’ who got
lost in space), there was a TV show called “Lost in Space”
and this is a drug reference, the 60’s are generalized by saying
everyone in the entire world was on acid.

With no time left
to start again
It took them a whole decade to get to this point, the generation’s
time was quickly fading. McLean thinks they wasted most of there
time on drugs.

So come on Jack
be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack flash sat on a candlestick
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was a hit for the Rolling Stones.
In this song, McJagger compares himself with Jesus. This line
comes from the nursery rhyme that has the line “Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick, Jack jumps over a candlestick.”

’cause fire is
the devil’s only friend.
The Stones sold out to the devil. Their only comeback to the Beatles
“Sgt. Pepper” was their album “Their Satanic Majesties
Request.” Seeing that you’ve probably never heard of this,
you can imagine that it pretty much sucks. Also, their song “Sympathy
for the Devil,” proves that they were desperate to sell their
records (the Beatles were SOOOOO much better!). Was it really
worth celebrating the devil?

Oh, and as I watched
him on the stage
No, it wasn’t. In December of 1969, the Stones attempted another
Woodstock, this time at Altamont Speedway. This time it was a
free concert, with the Hell’s Angel’s handling the security. The
biggest mistake was paying them in advance, but instead of money,
with beer and handfuls of acid. While the stones were singing
“Sympathy for the Devil,” a black man was beaten and
stabbed to death by the Hell’s Angels. They soon began beating
everyone, include a member of the Jefferson Airplane.

My hands were
clenched in fists of rage
He was pissed.

No angel born
in hell could brake that Satan’s spell
“angels born in hell” a.k.a. the “Hell’s Angels!”
When you have sympathy for the devil, you’re asking for trouble.

As the flames
climbed high into the night, to light the sacrificial rite
The stones were helicoptered out of there it became so crazy,
hence the “climbed high.” It’s like the Stones started
the living hell, and left in the middle of it…what’s up with
that? The sacrifice to the devil was the man’s life.

I saw Satan laughing
with delight, the day the music died.
This was the definitive ending of the sixties. The generation
that was lost in space was now lost on earth. Before the only
violence was between the hippies and the police, now it was amongst
themselves. Satan had won, in one final blow.

Verse 6

I met a girl who
sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news, but she just
smiled and turned away.
Janis Joplin is most the girl who sang the blues. Her big hits
were “Piece of My Heart” and “Me and Bobby McGee.”
She died of an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970.
McLean is still trying to find happiness like in the beginning
of the song “Maybe they’d be happy for a while,” “That
music used to make me smile.” (Note the tone of the song
is very similar in these to verses) But this time the smile isn’t
for happiness but regret.

I went down to
the sacred store
Here he’s talking about record stores that sold 50’s albums.

Where I heard
the music years before, but the man said the music wouldn’t play
By the 70’s, the 50’s music was almost ignored by everyone. Hundreds
of great albums were released in the 60’s, and it seems that everyone
has forgot about the 50’s.

And in the streets
the children screamed

The youth of America were beaten in the
streets especially at the end of the decade. (Like I said earlier,
the Kent State murders and the Chicago Democratic Convention)

The lovers cried
and the poets dreamed
In Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” he says: “I
met one man he was wounded in love, I met another man he was wounded
in hatred,” showing that love hurts sometimes as much as
hate.

But not a word
was spoken. The church bells all were broken.
Again in “A Hard Rain…,” the line is “I saw ten
thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.” Simon and
Garfunkel had a hit with “Sound of Silence.” The church
bells all were broken shows that people have forgotten God. All
things are are so sacred are gone, love, faith, happiness, peace.
In Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” one
verse goes: Disillusioned words like bullets bark . As human gods
aim for their mark . Made everything from toy guns that spark
. To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark . It’s easy to
see without looking too far. That not much Is really sacred. McLean
isn’t the only one that feels this way. He was obviously a religious
man, and is very disappointed that they have abandoned God.

And the three
men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost
The trinity of God, McLean was Catholic.

They caught the
last train for the coast.
God has left. Time magazine even featured a cover story “Is
God Dead?” The generation has failed, and “with no time
left to start again.” It was now up to the next generation
to put things right (and they did a terrible job might I add).

The day the music
died. And we were singing….
This last verse is the hardest to explain…Remember, McLean never
would talk about what what the lyrics definitely mean, so it’s
not perfectly clear. Some people believe there were more references
to the Kennedy’s (him being the king and his wife the queen),
but I feel his presence is felt though the songs from the 60’s
better. Ps, this took me forever.

Refrain

So bye, bye Miss
American Pie
Pimp Daddy McLean was dating one of the Miss America contestants
during one of the pageants. Also the “American Pie”
part is a symbol of the American Dream (at least of the 50’s),
it was also the name of the plane that crashed and killed Holly
(or so goes the rumor).

Drove my Chevy
to the levee but the levee was dry
The American automobile was the Chevy. The levee business shows
that America wasn’t fertile anymore (at least in the sense of
music). “Chevy” rhymes with “levee.”

And them good
old boys were drinking whiskey and rye singing “This will
be the day that I die, this will be the day
that I die.”
The traditional Americans are depressed with the current lifestyle
(60’s). The song comes from Buddy Holly’s “That’ll be the
day,” that eventually says “that I die.”

Another interesting note brought to my attention
by Scott Tilles, is that the Levee was a bar in Purchase, NY near
McLean’s hometown. There is also a Levee, NY which is about 15
minutes from the school he attended.

Interesting…

This was found on the following web site:
http://webpub.alleg.edu/student/c/carsonm/amerpie.htm

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Last Made: July 28th, 1999