What do lyrics to american pie mean

The players tried for a forward pass Here the football metaphor starts. The players are the protesters in the 60's. The forward pass was their movement to change the situation they were in, full of government corruption.

With the jester, on the sidelines in a cast. In late , while riding near his house in Woodstock, NY, he briefly glanced into the sun and lost control of his bike. When he went to brake, they locked up on him and sent him flying off the motorcycle. It took him about 9 months to recover or was he just pregnant and trying to hide it from the world????

Now the half time air was sweet perfume Flower Power, groovy baby! Drugs, man, drugs. While sergeants played a marching tune Sgt. Pepper, Beatles, , recently named the most influencal album of all time. First ever concept album. First to have lyrics printed on the back. First to have a design on the protector of the record. Included an elaborate cover design and cut-outs.

As far as the music goes, it had drug references in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, sitars, animal sounds and studio trickery. In the song "Being for the Benefit of Mr.

In "A Day in the Life" which was banned from the radio 'cause of the drug reference line "I'd Love to Turn You On" , after the piano cords die out, there is a minute of silence, followed by a high pitched sound by the request of John Lennon, especially to annoy the family dog , then a loop of Beatles gibberish to make the owners of the LP think that the needle had stuck!

What was I talking about again? We all got up to dance, but we never got the chance Oh yeah, American Pie!! That's a good song In , at the Chicago Democratic convention, protesters rioted, and some were beaten by the police. It is now known as the days of rage. The marching band refused to yield The Beatles had some anti-violence songs that made protesters think twice about the way they were acting. Do you recall what was revealed, the day the music died. So what was revealed?

As Dr. Evil says in Austin Powers, "Face it, freedom failed" or more accurately, the protests failed. The government is more corrupt now then ever before. McLean wasn't a big 60's fan and here is putting down the efforts of the failed generation. Verse 5. It took place at Woodstock actually Bethel because that's were Dylan was hiding, and they were hoping he would come out and play.

Unfortunately he turned it down for the "Isle of Wright" concert. A generation lost in space The moon landing was of course in , David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was released which was about 'major Tom' who got lost in space , there was a TV show called "Lost in Space" and this is a drug reference, the 60's are generalized by saying everyone in the entire world was on acid.

With no time left to start again It took them a whole decade to get to this point, the generation's time was quickly fading. McLean thinks they wasted most of there time on drugs. In this song, McJagger compares himself with Jesus. This line comes from the nursery rhyme that has the line "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumps over a candlestick.

The Stones sold out to the devil. Their only comeback to the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" was their album "Their Satanic Majesties Request. Was it really worth celebrating the devil? Oh, and as I watched him on the stage No, it wasn't. This time it was a free concert, with the Hell's Angel's handling the security. The biggest mistake was paying them in advance, but instead of money, with beer and handfuls of acid.

While the stones were singing "Sympathy for the Devil," a black man was beaten and stabbed to death by the Hell's Angels.

They soon began beating everyone, include a member of the Jefferson Airplane. My hands were clenched in fists of rage He was pissed. No angel born in hell could brake that Satan's spell "angels born in hell" a.

As the flames climbed high into the night, to light the sacrificial rite The stones were helicoptered out of there it became so crazy, hence the "climbed high. The sacrifice to the devil was the man's life. I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died. This was the definitive ending of the sixties. The generation that was lost in space was now lost on earth. Before the only violence was between the hippies and the police, now it was amongst themselves.

Satan had won, in one final blow. Verse 6. I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away. Janis Joplin is most the girl who sang the blues.

Although some employees of Caffe Lena claimed that he started to write the song there, McLean said that he wrote it in Cold Spring and Philadelphia. Source: poststar. Another dispute revolved around where McLean first performed the song. Considering how ambiguous many of the lyrics were, and the fact that McLean himself refrained from giving any specifics, people started providing their own interpretations. But most of the lyrics have been the subject of speculation for years.

Many believe that American Pie contains references to multiple postwar events, such as the civil rights movement, and pop culture elements.

McLean opens the song with the first verse…. He reflects back on the days of innocence. Source: Shutterstock. McLean turns his attention to a formative event that basically took the joy out of him: the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash in McLean, a paperboy at the time, read about the death of the pop star on the front page of the newspapers he delivered. It was an objectively tragic day in the music world.

Identifying Buddy Holly by the year he died, as well as the widow he left behind, the first verse is the easiest to decipher. For those unfamiliar with the term, a levee is a dam built to prevent floods, but it can also refer to the steep bank of a river. Source: nydailynews. McLean alluded to that commercial because the Chevy was the symbol of the typical American family of the period.

Source: patch. In that song, Holly fears that his love will leave him, which would mean the end of the world for him. Using the line with a double meaning, McLean points to Holly as a symbol of the song, mourning the death of music as he knows it and a whole world with it.

McLean is remembering a golden age in American history — a time of pickup trucks, sock hops, and pink carnations, which is likely a reference to the Marty Robbins song A White Sport Coat with a Pink Carnation.

The big picture here is: We were young, we were pure, and then the music died, and with it our innocence. It was a time when most Americans found themselves free from uncertainties and finally able to enjoy themselves. The religious imagery in the second verse becomes a recurring symbol of loss throughout the song. Music itself becomes an object of faith, and McLean suggests that the music of the postwar period symbolized the unquestioning innocence of the era.

Now a staple of the song, the theme of the sacredness of the music, makes its mark. But it can also be a reference to The Rolling Stones themselves.

The image of a rolling stone refers to an old proverb describing a person who never settles down. It marked a turning point in his career, and many said Dylan lost his muse.

There is virtually no debate on this part: Bob Dylan is the Jester in this song. But, in a interview, Dylan expressed his distaste for the label. Ask him. The Jester is a mythological figure in folklore who plays the role of a trickster, advising royals while undermining them.

Dean became the symbol of youth in chaos and shot to stardom. But sadly, he died much too soon in a car accident. Dean was the first actor to receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination posthumously. He is also one of the very few actors to be nominated in this category for their first film role. It was one of the most critical years in the history of America because of the assassination of President John F.

Perhaps it was their crown that Dylan stole. Once again, the world McLean once knew was suddenly changing. At right is his Naval Aide, Capt.

Tazewell Shepard. Presley, the s symbol of a youthful rebellion, had become obsolete when the new generation chose Dylan to be their spokesman. Marx, associated with the Communist Revolution, can be linked to Lennon via the song Revolution. Lenin reading a book on Marx can also refer to the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe.

The idea of a cultural revolution is clear at this point, and, as The Beatles grew more experimental, they changed the shape of rock and roll — just as Dylan had done before them. The dirges which are funeral songs possibly reference the death of JFK, but may also be mourning for the good old days. The fourth verse mirrors the changes in culture and society…. Both songs cater to the idea of falling fast, which is a metaphor for the falling of the old world and the advent of a new one.

McLean then refers again to Dylan, who is on the sidelines after his motorcycle accident in Many say the marching band is the police blocking civil rights protesters. But perhaps "what was revealed" has nothing really to do with any of these events, and is really a harbinger for the tragedy that follows in the fifth verse A giant gathering of people, all high on drugs.

It has to be Woodstock, right? Not so, say Pie connoisseurs. The lyrics more closely match the tragic concert at Altamont Speedway in December , where "Jack Flash sat on a candlestick". The Stones' frontman Mick Jagger really did appear on stage that night dressed in a flowing red cape, singing lyrics inciting fire and rebellion.

Meanwhile at the stage perimeter members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang - hired as security - engaged in bloody clashes with the rioting audience. Jagger was later accused of failing to halt the performance, infuriating McLean's narrator: "I saw Satan laughing with delight; The day the music died".

Just as Woodstock was heralded as the landmark of the counterculture movement, "Altamont was the event that signalled its demise. Reality steps in," says Fann. The tragedy served to finally "burst the bubble of youth culture's illusions about itself," wrote Todd Gitlin, an eyewitness, in his book The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.

And in the final verse of McLean's parable, when he "goes down to the sacred store, where I'd heard the music years before" he finds that sadly:. And these words are not just symbolic. But even more so, "the cynicism of this generation had annihilated the innocent world the narrator had grown up in. Forty-three years later, it would be nice to think that - whatever the revelations to come from McLean's original scribbled notes - they will not burst the bubble for the millions of fans who still dream of Chevys, whisky and rye.

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McLean to reveal American Pie secret. A long, long time ago Don McLean says his original lyrics reveal "everything there is to know". American Pie is the longest song ever to top the Billboard Hot , at eight minutes and 36 seconds.

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Could these scribbles solve the riddle of American Pie? Colin Paterson reports. But for McLean aficionados there is a greater prize. Image source, don mclean. McLean's original notes, unedited, are 16 pages long and give clues to his thought process. Buddy Holly's death was a "personal tragedy" for the year-old McLean.