American Pie

I never got that out of the song.

It was just about life in the 60's and his memories I thought.

I don't agree with everything on this site but it is a fairly accurate breakdown in the following link.
http://www.rareexception.com/Garden/Pie.php

I haven't check out your link yet, but have just watched a video "The Meaning of American Pie", and it seems the line 'the day the music died' refers to the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash alongwith his mates Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, and the album (Am. Pie) was released 12 years later.

One opinion is the Pie is the events of the decade of the 1960's and the slices are every episode he( McLean) is describing. Watching it on youtube and seeing all the pictures flash up at the same time the words are sung, makes it all so obvious, and yet, when I'd hear it on radio, it was the chorus which would stick in one's mind and it was those words which made me think of war - 'singing this'll be the day that I die.'

So yes, you're about it being about life in the sixties

From what I've hear even McLean himself doesn't know exactly what the song is about.....or won't say. Lots of drug going around back them. If I had to bet I'd say it's just a ramble with no solid meaning.

Brooktrout - you could very well be right. The song does seem to go off at a tangent and heads in so many different directions. This was the one "explaining" the meaning .

"the line 'the day the music died' refers to the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash "

I'm surprised you didn't already know that, it has to be one of the most famous lines in popular music history.

Before anyone says it American Pie was not the name of the plane that crashed

It would seem my education was somewhat lacking! I was only young at the time, hadn't heard of Buddy Holly and was very "into" classical music. I could rave on about Chopin, tell you all about Tchaikovsky, laud the wonders of Mozart and go into raptures over Bach's Chorale Cantata No 147, but American pop music? 'Fraid not.

Apart from the classics, it was mainly Simon and Garfunkle, Sonny & Cher, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Beatles of course, the Monkees, and the Australian singers Johnny Farnham, Ronnie Burns, and Normie Rowe. I don't think I heard American Pie until a few years after it came out.

But I can sing all the words from "The Brady Bunch" and "Gilligan's Island."

Buddy Holly wrote "That'll Be The Day".............'cause that'll be the day when I die

We'd (those of us born in the 50s and growing up in the 60s and early 70s) always taken it to be a song about the end of an era of music, and life - the 50s and dancin' and good old boy rockabilly, 57 chevys, American as Mom's Apple Pie, sock hops, etc - and moving into the 60s and through it to the early 70s - a generation lost in space

February made me shiver, with every paper I delivered - his widowed bride - the plane crash was in February

I was going through the lyrics and some of the references I can remember some I forget - Elvis, The Beatles, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, the Manson murders were in August - helter skelter in the summer swelter - who had the cast? all I can think of is Jan and Dean but there was someone big with a cast during that time - the Stones, jumpin' jack flash - The Byrds, Eight Miles High - lots of others if I keep thinking, which I can't have to roll, but you get my drift I'm sure

PS - music videos oft times have absolutely nothing to do with the meaning of the song

and "classical music" is only the Pop music of it's time, Pop meaning Pop Culture meaning Popular Culture - "Classical Music" was music for the masses - punk if you will - it wasn't chant, it wasn't religious, it didn't fit the proscribed musical formulas demanded for it to be "worthy" of higher society - it wasn't about any higher ideals or morals - it was emotional and new and experimental and revolutionary and rebellious once upon a time and whores plied their trade in the private boxes as the music played and the masses listened - that's what private theater boxes were for - private parties - where rich people could slum among the masses and enjoy their base urges and culture and party away from the court and their arranged marriages and their strict social class rules and regulations - it's still wonderful music, I'm just saying - pop is where you find it, and sooner or later all music ends up in the same place......elevators

Hatsehpsut #7 - I grew up in that era too, but remember, I'm Australian and from your words I'd say you are an American. Americans like chevys and I've heard the term "as American as Mum's apple pie" - as a matter of interest, what are sock hops please? I don't know how American children were brought up or if girls were treated different to boys; from your post I'm guessing you're a bloke, a chap? But over here
"nice" girls from "good" families went to a Convent and were taught by the Nuns. There were no boys - girls only.

We weren't exposed to American music and culture or "pop" music. Mum had the radio set on 3DB - the most boring station with the most boring music from the 30's and 40's - that was from her era.

I first heard of Elvis when I was eleven. Don't know who Jan and Dean are or jumpin' jack flash - The Byrds, Eight Miles High either. but yes, I get your drift.

Classical music - what we call classical music had been around for some time by the time Chopin and Mozart were living - the style may have altered slightly but basically it wasn't all that much different from the earlier baroque period. From around the 1700's to the early to mid 1800's is the time frame or era we think of for classical music. I haven't expressed it very well but you get the general idea?