40 Years Later, Fans Still Slice Up Don McLean's 'American Pie'

"'American Pie' is a dream," Don McLean said recently. "In a dream, you know, a loaf of bread will become a beautiful girl, and it makes sense." In other words, even the guy who wrote the most dissected, analyzed and argued-over song of the past 40 years doesn't have a clue what some of its rich cultural and political imagery means. And that makes us feel a whole lot better about taking a shot at getting under the crust of "American Pie."

When he first performed “American Pie” in 1972, Don McLean crystalized for an entire generation the shock of the air crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. For all time, Feb. 3, 1959, became The Day the Music Died.

Buddy Holly had married his sweetheart Maria Elena just six months before the crash. She was pregnant, and miscarried soon after Holly died. To this day, she has never visited Buddy's gravesite. 

So bye-bye, Miss American Pie / Drove my Chevy to the levee / But the levee was dry / Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye

"Miss American Pie" may be Dinah Shore, the 1950s star who sang "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet." McLean may also be referencing a bar called The Levee in his hometown of New Rochelle, N.Y. (When it closed down, the story goes, patrons headed up the road to drink their "whiskey in Rye"). The song those boys were singing echoes Buddy Holly’s hit "That’ll Be the Day." McLean is saying "bye-bye" to the carefree '50s as they give way to the turbulent '60s.

One of the biggest hits of 1958 was "Book of Love," by the Monotones — one of the quirkier songs of the era ("I wonder wonder who-mba-doo who? (thump) Who wrote the book of love?"). When it came to sock-hop rock 'n' roll innocence, the song had few peers. 

Do you have faith in God above / if the Bible tells you so? / Do you believe in rock 'n' roll? / Can music save your mortal soul? 

From Elvis's gyrations on The Ed Sullivan Show to John Lennon's observation that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, rock and America's conservative churches were often on a collision course. For fans, that made it more fun.

Dick Clark didn't seem to mind on American Bandstand, but the line carries a fond resonance for all who remember an overzealous high school dance chaperone pushing them to a "safe distance" from their partner.

I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck / with a pink carnation and a pickup truck

It’s hard to imagine the line isn’t inspired by Marty Robbins’ 1957 hit "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)" — a mournful teenage song about a guy with a broken heart on prom night.  

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 

Scowling, serious and rebellious, young Bob Dylan assumed the role of popular culture's angry young man — of which Dean was the 1950s prototype.  As for that "coat he borrowed," the jacket Dylan wears on the cover of his Freewheelin’ does echo the one Dean had in Rebel Without a Cause.

Poor Elvis Presley (the King); he was out in Hollywood making bad movies and generally averting his gaze from reality while the whole music world — led by the social consciousness-raising Dylan — virtually forgot him.

The leftist leanings of John Lennon (Lenin, get it?) fed the social content of the Beatle's songs. But some suspect the lyric also refers to Lennon's dry, sarcastic sense of humor, reminiscent of that other Marx, the one named Groucho.

The easy answer: This is an allusion to Charles Manson's California killing spree in August 1969 — Manson claimed to have been inspired, in part, by the Beatles' "Helter Skelter." 

The birds flew off with a fallout shelter / Eight miles high and falling fast

This has to be about The Byrds, whose 1966 song "Eight Miles High" got banned from radio because its lyrics could be construed to be about drug use. The band denied it (We’re shocked … shocked!), but years later they admitted, well, yeah, you know …

The players tried for a forward pass / With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Everyone's pretty happy with the notion that the jester is again Dylan, who had to quit performing for two years after a 1966 motorcycle accident nearly killed him.

Now the halftime air was sweet perfume / While the sergeants played a marching tune / We all got up to dance / Oh, but we never got the chance 

The pot-infused ("sweet perfume") sound of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band heralded the era of the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and Iron Butterfly's In A Gadda Da Vida.  You know; music that's less for dancing and more for sitting around trying to remember where the door is.  McLean, a die-hard lover of old-time rock 'n' roll, is mourning its replacement by the new psychedelia.

The players tried to take the field / the marching band refused to yield

Three pretty good suggestions for this one:

A) The "players" are the demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago being evicted from Grant Park by police ("the marching band").

B) The "marching band" is the Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and their ilk, dominating the world's music with their complex, recording studio-based sound.

C) A little bit of both.

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’s spell

One of the few no-way-to-get-it-wrong allusions in "American Pie" is this reference to Mick Jagger (Jack Flash) and the Rolling Stones' performance at the Altamont concert on July 20, 1969. The Stones hired Hell's Angels to keep the massive crowd in line. The result: A man named Meredith Hunter was beaten to death by the Angels, and his body was dragged onstage. The last song Hunter ever heard was the Stones singing "Sympathy for the Devil." The event incinerated the last shred of innocence of 1960s rock 'n' roll. 

I met a girl who sang the blues / And I asked her for some happy news / But she just smiled and turned away 

The raspy, bluesy style of Janis Joplin was a throwback to rock's roots. With her death of a drug overdose at 27 in 1970, she "turned away" — and the "happy news" of rock's rebirth went with her.

The three men I admire most / the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost / They caught the last train for the coast 

Maybe the most puzzling line in the whole song — especially since it’s basically the last. Is this a reference back to the trio of rock greats who died in the 1959 plane crash? Is it about JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King? Or is McLean suggesting his sense of abandonment by God Himself? The most intriguing notion is that McLean is writing about John "Trane" Coltrane, whose 1965 album track, "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost" marked the jazz great's complete transition from melodic to atonal, avante-garde music. 

Don McLean thought this 1975 concert in London would be among his last. Instead, he's launching a 40th anniversary tour this fall. Like all good poetry, "American Pie" is every bit as open to the interpretation of the listener's heart as it is to the author's. What do YOU think?