During the last days of 1971 and into 1972 everyone was listening to and trying to determine what the lyrics meant in Don McLean’s American Pie. Other than alluding to the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens on February 3, 1959, a day many have called the ‘Day the Music Died’ there could be many different meanings to parts of the song. McLean has said that he wrote it to be vague. And vague it is, but a very enjoyable vague that brings back memories to anyone who grew up during the 1960′s.
It was also during this time that I came of age. In August of 1971 I turned 13 and during that summer and since I spent many hours listening to music. As you can probably guess the music of the 70s is my favorite music. For a nice site for music of the 70s see 70sMusicRevisted.com
When listening to American Pie and trying to figure out the lyrics, many of those references seem to date to music of the 50s and 60s. To me that seemed so long ago.
Now 40 years later as I remember American Pie, which was the Number 1 song in January of 1972, Melanie’s Brand New Key, which saw 1971 out as Number 1 and all of the other great songs of ’71 and ’72 it doesn’t seem all that long ago.
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