History of The Day The Music Died: American Pie
HISTORY OF THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: AMERICAN PIE
On February 3, 1959, a plane crash occurred in Iowa during a snowstorm shortly after 1:00 AM, killing three young rock and roll singers who would go down in history: Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. They were part of the 24-day “Winter Dance Party” tour.
Their story would later be captured as “long, long time ago” in the eight-and-a-half-minute hit song “American Pie” by Don McLean, released twelve years later in 1971. The song was the Number 1 US hit for four weeks in 1972.
Many attempts have been made to decrypt the lyrics of this abstract song. Though never explicitly stated – except that the song is dedicated to Buddy Holly – these musicians appear to represent:
“the three men I admire most,
the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
they caught the last train to the Coast
The day the music died.”
When was The Day the Music Died?
American Pie Album
“February made me shiver… bad news on the doorstep”
… is the date of the crash. These performers were planning a long tour.” The bus was so cold that Buddy Holly decided to charter a plane to the next venue in Fargo, N.D. But the plane didn’t make it.
Who died on The Day the Music Died?
- Richard Valenzuela, aka Richie Valens, was only 17 and had a hit with La Bamba.
- Buddy Holly had several hits, including That’ll Be The Day and Peggy Sue. His song Peggy Sue Got Married was later turned into a hit movie by Francis Ford Coppola, starring his daughter Sophia and nephew Nicolas Cage (Coppola).
- “The Big Bopper,” mentioned by Nicolas Cage in that same movie, was not the name of a hamburger but the singer of the hit song Chantilly Lace.
Why Did He Write The Day the Music Died?
Looking back to the beginning of the ’70s, McLean writes a farewell to the idyllic music of the ’50s and ’60s, with a chorus that uses a popular symbol of Americana: Apple Pie.
With his memories as a 13-year-old on the occasion of the plane crash, which he learned while folding newspapers for delivery, he recounted in 2015, when he sold the lyrics for $1.2M, that the music that progressed from that time “when… I can still remember how that music used to make me smile” to the late 60s was as follows:
“Basically in ‘American Pie’ things are heading in the wrong direction…
It [life] is becoming less idyllic. I don’t know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”
What Did American Pie Mean?
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
Don McLean avoided explaining the lyrics to this song for many years, but said he would do so when he sold the lyrics. He did reveal the meanings of some of the lyrics at that time:
- “The Levee” = a place where he grew up in New Rochelle, NY, where he would listen to music and party.
- “The King” = Elvis Presley, or as McLean later said, “The thorny crown… That’s Jesus Christ.”
- “The Jester” = Bob Dylan, or as McLean later said, “I said James Dean in the song. If I meant Elvis or Bob Dylan, I would have said their names.”
- “Ten Years” = At the Altamont Free Concert in 1969, the death of audience member Meredith Hunter, ten years after the fateful plane crash in 1959. In what has been called “Woodstock of the West,” the Hells Angels provided stage security for the concert. While Mick Jagger [aka Jumpin’ Jack Flash] of The Rolling Stones performed “Sympathy for the Devil,” Hunter, who was high on methamphetamines, got into a fight with the Hells Angels and was stabbed to death. Rolling Stone Magazine called it “rock and roll’s all-time worst day… a day when everything went perfectly wrong.”
Here are the lyrics:
Now for ten years we’ve been on our own,
and moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone…
Oh, and as I watched him [Jack] on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s 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
Oh, and the name of the plane? Was it, as has often been said, “American Pie?”
No, that’s an urban legend. The plane’s only designation was on the wing registration: N3794N.
But a lost seventh verse hinting at a happier ending was not revealed until the song’s original manuscript was sold at auction in 2015. It went like this:
And there I stood alone and afraid
I dropped to my knees and there I prayed
And I promised Him everything I could give
If only He would make the music live
And He promised it would live once more
But this time one would equal four
And in five years four had come to mourn
And the music was reborn
Are the “four” the Fab Four, The Beatles?
So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie…
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
Podcast:
[…] others on recent history, like that of the 5th anniversary of Facebook or the 50th anniversary of The Day the Music Died, or the epochal nature of Inauguration Day or that of the Long […]
Bill,
I just read something today that said that Buddy was having some financial woes and that he had to find work so he agreed to join this tour.
Steve
Steve,
Thanks for the question: the performers were on the eleventh night of their 24-day Winter Dance Party tour and had not been paid yet. Their bus had broken down once already and Buddy decided to charter a plane to the next location and asked others along between sets. At the time, Buddy Holly’s career had lasted a year and a half with only one number one single at the time of his death at 22, and accepted top billing for the tour as a way to dig himself out of bankruptcy. His pregnant “widowed bride” heard about the crash on the radio and collapsed. The next day she miscarried.
-Bill