McLean, according to his song, anyway, was 14 and delivering papers in the rather smart New York suburb of New Rochelle where he grew up. I was on a Ribble bus going to school in Lancashire, peering over the shoulder of the man in front of me when I saw the headline. That was the easy part, of course, for anyone of my and his generation who learned about the death in a plane crash in 1959 of one of the first great singer-songwriters of rock, Buddy Holly, when we read about it in the morning newspaper.Īs McLean sings, it was truly 'The day the music died'. 'It means I'll never have to work again,' he would joke about how much money the song had made him, leaving us to work out for ourselves what the 'sad news on the doorstep' was exactly, and why he 'couldn't take one more step' when he read it.

Of course, like all poets, McLean didn't give us a key to the riddle of what his song was about when he released his multi-million-selling single.

That may be a slight overstatement, but it shows. McLean loves words, he says, 'almost as much as life'. Because, in this age, when song lyrics have all but become meaningless, American Pie illustrates, in a series of images, metaphors and allusions, just what can be done within the frame of a melodically straightforward pop song. But, to be honest, I rather think that whoever bought them got a bargain. That's a lot of money for 18 sheets of paper, albeit with a lost seventh verse. And this week its lyrics, hand-written in 1971 by a young folk singer called Don McLean, were sold at auction in New York for more than $1 million. social history by even groovier academics, it's called American Pie. For more than 40 years, its lyrics have been an enigma wrapped in an eight-and-a-half minute long rock 'n' roll puzzle.Īrgued over by generations of geeky fans, deciphered and re-deciphered by code-breaking rock nerds and considered to be poetic reflections on mid-20th century U.S. There has never been a popular song quite like it. Don McLean (pictured) is responsible American Pie, the lyrics of which have been puzzled over for decades

Lyrics to helter skelter meaning