About the artist: Don McLean (1945) is an American singer-songwriter who had a world-wide success with his album American Pie. Don McLean currently has two songs in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: the title track of his hugely successful 1971 album. This impressive dirge about the day the music died clearly refers to the death of Buddy Holly in 1959, although the plane he died in was not called American Pie, contrary to popular belief. Some references in the lyrics are clear comments on developments (musical and political) in the sixties, including Dylan as The Jester, and Janis Joplin as 'the girl who sang the blues'. Some are rather obscure though, to say the least. McLean himself has always refused to clarify them in spite of several requests, and as a result numerous theories on interpretation have emerged.... they even made the columns of the famous Straight Dope by Cecil. That lyrical ambiguity remains one of the charms of this song. Run time 8:32.
