“Now, for ten years we’ve been on our own McLean, rock and roll took a wrong turn down a murky alley. ![]() “Well, I know that you’re in love with himīut as Don McLean got older, music’s soul got darker and, if we are to believe Mr. Our world was complicated only perhaps by simple teenage jealousies. All of these concepts, angels, hell, Satan, are quite Catholic at their roots.ĭon McLean describes early Rock and Roll of his youth as light and fun, something to dance to – innocent. The song is also about the loss of innocence, the Beatles, Charles Manson, Hells Angels and most certainly about Mick Jagger as a Satanic figure who pulled innocent rock and roll literally down into a fiery hell. The hidden Catholic meaning behind American PieĪmerican Pie is much more than a song about Buddy Holly and the plane crash that Don McLean believes marked the sad day when “music died” in America. Much of what follows was inspired, in part by the article found at this link. ” From that point on I was off to the races. Wikipedia says: “Don McLean was raised a devout Catholic. To begin my research I started with Wikipedia, the ultimate source for everything, of course. It didn’t take long to hit a little nugget of gold. I wanted to see if there was some Catholic meaning to the song that had not made its way into popular culture. I have always wondered what Don McLean was trying to say with those words. After hearing the line I was determined to dig into the song’s meaning for myself. The line in the song that I could not get out of my mind was: “The three men I admired most the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.” A very Catholic phrase, I said to myself. The other day I mysteriously heard the song twice in two very different locations. Driving in the car with the top down was always a special way we shared the song together. My daughter and I share great memories listening to this song in our car, in our home, and on vacation. ![]() ![]() The code according to most critics has never been fully cracked.Īmerican Pie has always been one of my favorite songs. There is no argument on that point.īut the song goes on and on offering the listener twists and turns and hidden messages. Most people familiar with the famous tune understand that the song’s powerful line, “The day the music died,” pertains to the day Buddy Holly died at 22 years of age in a plane crash. In a Washington Post interview Don McLean said this about his song: “It was an indescribable photograph of America that I tried to capture in words and music.” Shortly after the sale, McLean made a round of interviews with music journalists who once again sought to unravel the meaning behind the cryptic words to one of the most famous songs in rock and roll history. She had always been amazed by me, never thought things like that were going to happen.The original manuscript with the lyrics to Don McLean’s iconic tune America Pie were sold last year for $1.2 million. I told my mother they were playing the entire thing on the radio. When I was able to rouse myself, I turned on the radio, and there it was on WPLJ in New York, the whole ‘Tapestry’’ album. I think I had a 105 F temperature, was really ill, so she put me right to bed. So I stopped at my mother’s house in New Rochelle. But I do remember one instance when “Tapestry” came out. McLean: I’m sure there were first times I don’t remember. It didn’t get a chance to play out as it might have.Ĭlash: Do you remember the first time you heard your own song on the radio? ![]() It was forced by government action, I believe, against a number of leaders in order to turn the country away from the direction it was headed. I look at it and marvel - what’s their dream going to be? My dream ended with a lot of sixties’ assassinations. It’s a whole different country with a lot of things mixed up rather than a Christian white country. It’s not white, it’s multicultural, multi-religious. McLean: I think America from the perspective of an unreconstructed fifties’ person, which is what I am, has gone in nowhere near the right direction. Does “American Pie” have any elements of that? But I did invent that term and trademarked it.Ĭlash: I’m thinking of Simon & Garfunkel’s, “Mrs Robinson,” specifically the lines, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio/A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” I see that as a longing for the simplicity of the fifties. McLean: Well, there was no plane called, “American Pie.” I don’t know where that one came from. Anything in particular you’ve seen that’s really off-base? Clash: A lot has been speculated about the tune, a lot of it probably crap.
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