A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music
Used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
Growing up, I would have a fireworks show run by a local park literally fifty feet right outside my backyard every Fourth of July. It became really quite a spectacular experience and milestone and each year I would be able to watch a little more of the show. At first, many of the lights would be too extraordinarily bright and I had to view the brightest fireworks and grand finale behind my closed eyes. Soon, I could watch more and more of the fireworks until one year I was able to keep my eyes open throughout the entire show. By this point, I had become self aware of this process, and the reflection of each prior year added to my experience of the show, even as a child. This was one of many motifs in my coming of age.
The park above my house would always play “American Pie” immediately before the beginning of the fireworks. When I heard the song I knew that it was time to get quiet, sit down, and begin not only a wondrous journey of my senses, but what became almost a rite of passage through each year. Looking back, these moments listening to “American Pie” before the fireworks show may have been some of my first memories of actually noticing and liking music. Don McLean wove a backdrop to some of my oldest memories, and unironically I am sure some of his went into this song. A few years ago, the fireworks shows right in front of my backyard had to stop, and even before then they had somehow become much shorter and less emphatic, however, for me, those wondrous emotions have been preserved undecayed in this song that would always mark and serenade my attention each year.
Though slightly cryptic, “American Pie” tells a coming-of-age story dressed in tragedy and slight religiosity. The song is widely attributed as a memorial of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richards, three major music figures of the 1950’s. Don McLean could have created a sad tribute of paretic mourning, however instead of raising this tragedy, he enveloped it in a message of time and humanity. “American Pie” does not sound like a sad song. Though its chorus includes mentions of goodbyes and death, somehow it still only feels warm and bonding. Don McLean created a campfire song, that does not tire over its above average runtime, about a plane crash. The melodies wrap and wane around imagery of marching bands, dirges, devils, and dances. “American Pie” is more a song to an era than to a moment, and feels like an ongoing nostalgic passing of one. The song’s instruments are a voice, a guitar, a piano and an infectious charm and energy telling a symphony of a very human summary of mortality.
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
A quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
