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Date: 8/8/2022
On Paramount+: “The Day the Music Died: Don McLean’s American Pie”
This new documentary marks the 50th anniversary of a song that to this day continues to popular and intriguing.
It’s fascinating to note the lyrics of the song are still being debated and, in this film, composer and singer Don McLean goes through each line and gives an explanation of the meaning.
I’m sure if you’re familiar with the song, you’ve wondered if Elvis Presley or Bob Dylan are the figures noted in some of the lyrics and McLean clears that up. There are several lines of lyrics with strong imagery that nonetheless is ambiguous in meaning.
Part of the song’s enduring success is the game of interpreting those lyrics.
More than just a revelation about the words, the film is about the cultural impact the song has had for the past 50 years. The success capitulated McLean from a working but fairly obscure singer-songwriter with one foot in rock and one foot in folk to a chart-busting star.
Director Mark Moorman carefully uses McLean’s background along with citing the history of the 1960s to properly provide context for the creation of the song and for its acceptance by audiences. He spends time explaining McLean’s childhood reaction to the death of influential rocker Buddy Holly, which clearly inspired much of the song.
Holly was seen as a superstar in the making. Today he is still known for hits such as “That will be the Day,” “Peggy Sue,” “Every Day,” among others. After performing in a venue in Clear Lake, IA, he was killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson, better known as “The Big Bopper” in 1959. Valens was also seen an up-and-coming star.
McLean learned of the death of the three musicians literally from the newspapers he delivered as a teen.
This is not a biography of McLean. Other aspects of his career – the album with “American Pie” also had other hits songs such as “Vincent” – as well as his personal life are not covered by the film. In fact, only one other song McLean wrote or performed gets any screen time.
Instead, Moorman keeps his focus on this one eight-minute song that straddled the worlds and conventions of rock and folk music and remains popular and relevant to this day. It was an unlikely hit due to its running time, which flew in the conventions of radio at the time. This was not a three-minute love song. It was an epic referencing pop culture, the tone of the country and the impact of an event on one person. The result is a fascinating in-depth look at the creation of a song.
There are several very tender moments in the film with an interview with Richie Valen’s sister being one of them. She thanked McLean for helping to keep her brother’s memory alive. Another is footage of McLean performing a commemorative concert at the same venue that hosted Holly’s last show.
For me personally this documentary caused all kinds of feelings and memories to pop up. I was a high school senior 50 years ago and I was among the millions of people who bought the album “American Pie” and listened to it countless times.
Yes, I had a pickup truck, but I doubt that I was a “broncin’ buck.” I thought the song spoke to outsiders, which what I considered myself in high school like so many others. And like other fans I wondered just what some of the lyrics meant. I became a fan of McLean’s music and remained so to this day.
McLean has never had an easy relationship with the press – I know this personally having interviewed him – so it was a coup to get him involved in such a project.
Anyone who has wondered about this song should watch this insightful film.