When pressed for an interpretation of his own lyrics, Don McLean will often name drop Buddy Holly and then make vague references to Americana while outright refusing any specificity. Most people believe the song is a cache of references to (then) current events and other musical acts (some of whom are not even American) of the era. In trying to pinpoint exactly what this obese musical monstrosity is getting at everyone seems to miss the point, which is that there probably is no point. This is just incredibly terrible poetry set to sugar free vanilla soft rock.
A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music
Used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
A cataclysm of mixed up usage of past and present tense, which is every editor's nightmare. Obviously no editor ever touched these lyrics, or they could not possibly exist in this form. Is he remembering that he was remembering a long, long time ago? Did the music stop making him smile? And who are "those people"? Wouldn't just the word 'people' have sufficed?
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
This is the part about Buddy Holly. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some Buddy Holly, but to say that 'the music' died with him is a bit of a stretch. If anything was gonna kill the music, it would be the lyrics to this song, and somehow the music still survives.
Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so?
Now, do you believe in rock 'n' roll
Can music save your mortal soul
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
One thing I absolutely cannot stand is when some dingle-jingus asks a bunch of rhetorical questions in rapid fire procession in order to appear deeper than they actually are. No, I did not write that non-existent book. No I do not believe in the God the Bible commands we believe in. No, I don't believe in rock and roll, it is a fact of existence, and belief is an irrelevant response to it. Why didn't he ask if I believe in a soul before asking if the music can save it, isn't that a bit presumptuous? And finally, no I cannot teach you to dance real slow. But if he can already dance he should just slow it down some and stop asking so many stupid questions.
Well, I know that you're in love with him
'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues
I was a lonely teenage bronckin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died
Given that he had already bought a carnation, my best guess here is that he is singing about how his date to a school dance ditched him for some other guy. Or maybe not, maybe she just wanted him to watch her mess around with another dude, which would make him a teenage bronckin' cuck. BOOM!
Also, is this later in the same day that he was delivering papers and discovered that Buddy Holly had died, or does the music just keep dying whenever he gets near it? Maybe it's a sign, Don. Heed it.
Now, for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Moss does not grow fat on a rolling stone. It does not grow much at all, thanks to the friction of the rolling. If this whole bit is supposed to be a tribute to Bob Dylan, it does it all wrong by slaughtering the metaphor it uses to deliver that tribute.
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
A quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
Okay, so...Dylan takes Elvis' throne and something about court. Then somehow a man who has been dead for nearly fifty years is reading Das Kapital while the Beatles play to disrespectful crowds, followed by some kind of protest, and then another death of the music. I dunno, man, I didn't do it. This clustermunch of awkward references might make sense if I dropped some acid, but I would never listen to this song on acid unless I was on some real ugly masochist trip.
Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Yep, just another pile of words and events that form no single coherent thought. A song can be about something. It can have meaning, purpose or tell a story. It can be relatable to the experience of being a human being. Just mixing up a bunch of random thoughts and phrases is an extremely lazy way to write lyrics. If those random thoughts and phrases are based on actual persons and phenomena, then you could at least do those things the honor of some context and rational connectivity. This is just a gaudy soup of memes. A trope du jour.
Now, the halftime air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
'Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
Hold your hand up. Now form a fist. The number of fingers in front of you is the number of times anyone has ever danced to marching music, except perhaps members of the band itself. Really, you don't have to take this. You can close this window and move somewhere that this song will never be played. You deserve that.
Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend
How is the lord of the underworld's friendship with fire motivating Jack Flash to sit on a candlestick? Are there pants involved? Is this about something more than sitting? Is the devil making Jack do butt stuff? I must assume the candle was not lit, since you cannot have fire in the vacuum of space, where somehow an entire generation is lost together.
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
No angels were born in hell. Hell was created after the angels, for the specific purpose of imprisoning the naughtiest angel of them all - Satan. But why would Satan be so happy about the music dying? Again. Isn't rock and roll His music?
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play
Is the store itself sacred, or does it sell sacredness? I sure could use about 2 pounds of fresh sacred about right now, so it would be good to know. I don't even care if their piped in music system is down. I can make that purchase in total silence if need be.
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
You would think that a Catholic like Don would be clear on the fact that the Holy Trinity represents three aspects of the same divine being, not three different men. However it is blisteringly clear here that he doesn't. And he forces this misunderstanding into a verse that tries so hard to summon sadness and sentimentality that it comes off like some alien understanding of human emotion. Then God goes off to California and does weird things with candles while the music buys another farm. Groan.
And they were singin', bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die"
A levee is a device constructed in order to prevent water from flowing where it is unwanted. Does Don know this, or does he just loosely associate levees with water, and somehow believes they are a thing that can be filled with the stuff? Why did he drive there? What kind of loser hangs out at levees? How much did Chevy pay him to write about it?
Rye is a grain. That grain is often used to make whiskey. It is redundant to say 'whiskey and rye', and no matter how easily it fits your clumsy rhyme scheme, it is just sloppy and you shouldn't do it.
The only way a group of men could possibly know that they were all going to die that day is some kind of suicide pact. Obviously that is not what is going on here. This is all some kind of metaphor for America, and how the turbulence of the 1960s would bring about change and progress. But that didn't happen. The good ol' boys are still alive and doing better than ever, and their fortunes are the only real progress we have made. The very same hippies who created those hopeful sentiments went on to become those good ol' boys. And when asked what this song is really about, Don was eventually forced to admit it was about 'never having to work another day in his life'. Good ol' boy status achieved.
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