american pie is joyous
...ty of sixties music, hence the closing lyric: "The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.." Some, however, have postulated that in this line, the Trinity represents Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada, for above 2) McLean admits this is about Buddy Holly, but has never said what the lyrics are about, preferring to let listeners interpret them on their own. Madonna covered this in 2000. She was supposed to perform it at the Super Bowl that year, but backed out, claiming she did not have enough time to prepare. No one was too upset. Runs 8:38. The single was split in 2 parts because the 45 did not have enough room for the whole song on one side. You had to flip the record in the middle to hear all of it. In 1971, a singer named Lori Lieberman saw McLean perform this at the Troubadour theater in Los Angeles. She was so moved that she wrote a poem that became the basis for her song "Killing Me Softly With His Song," which was a huge hit for Roberta Flack in 1973. In 2002, this was featured in a Chevrolet ad. It showed a guy in his Chevy singing along to the end of this song. At the end, he gets out and it is clear that he was not going to leave the car until the song was over. The ad played up the heritage of Chevrolet, which has a history of being mentioned in famous songs (the line is this one is "drove my Chevy to the levee"). Chevy used the same idea a year earlier when it ran billboards of a red Corvette that said, "They don't write songs about Volvos." But that's not how it used to be When the jester sang for the King and Queen The jester is Bob Dylan, as will become clear later. There are several interpretations of king and queen: some think that Elvis Presley is the king, which seems pretty obvious. The queen is said to be either Connie Francis or Little Richard. But see the next note. An alternate interpretation is that this refers to the Kennedys -- the king and queen of "Camelot" -- who were present at a Washington DC civil rights rally featuring Martin Luther King. (There's a recording of Dylan performing at this rally.) In a coat he borrowed from James Dean In the movie "Rebel Without a Cause", James Dean has a red windbreaker that holds symbolic meaning throughout the film (see note at end). In one particularly intense scene, Dean lends his coat to a guy who is shot and killed; Dean's father arrives, sees the coat on the dead man, thinks it's Dean, and loses it. On the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", Dylan is wearing just such as red windbreaker, and is posed in a street scene similar to one shown in a well-known picture of James Dean. Bob Dylan played a command performance for the Queen of England. He was *not* properly attired, so perhaps this is a reference to his apparel. And a voice that came from you and me Bob Dylan's roots are in American folk music, with people like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Folk music is by definition the music of the masses, hence the "...came from you and me". Oh, and while the King was looking down The jester stole his thorny crown This could be a reference to Elvis's decline and Dylan's ascendance. (i.e. Presley is looking down from a height as Dylan takes his place.) The thorny crown might be a reference to the price of fame. Dylan has said that he wanted to be as famous as Elvis, one of his early idols. * * * With the jester on the sidelines in a cast, On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his Triumph 55 motorcycle while riding near his home in Woodstock, New York. He spent nine months in seclusion while recuperating from the accident. "And a voice that came from you and me" Okay, all the writers & critics used to talk about how BD gave voice to what everyone was thinking but didn't know how to say. Real trite stuff. I always felt that the *untrained* nature of BD's voice -- he *does* have a voice that could belong to anyone (or Everyman) -- is one of his great allures. Unfortunately for Bob's pocketbook, most consumers want a trained voice, it seems... the reasons For thirty years, the meaning behind Don McLean’s "American Pie" has been a mystery. As far as McLean is concerned, it will forever be unknown. Because of McLean’s reluctance to provide any insight on the overall explanation of the song, the mystery of the lyrics has grown over the past three decades. Even interpretations that are found on web sites approved by McLean are by no means the "official" interpretations. Furthermore, McLean hardly approves of any interpretations of the song. Most interpretations of "American Pie" focus on Buddy Holly and see the song as a tribute to his life, his work, and even his death. Perhaps McLean is commentin...