The song, "Bye bye Miss American Pie" what was the meaning of that song?

Question

and good ol boys, drinknig whiskey and wine, singing this will be the day that I die.....This will be the day that I die..

Answer 1

The chorus, as all good choruses should, states the theme. But as with the rest of the song, it states it allegorically.
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie
This line tells us in three words what is dying: a pure (Miss) American art form: rock and roll. The fact that McLean feminizes his musical love makes the song work on still another level: that of a tragic love story between a romantic young man and his favorite music.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey 'n' rye
The Chevy, like the pie in the line before, are American icons (symbols). The levee was somewhat of a mystery for years. I speculated that it could refer to the city of New Orleans. Why? Two reasons: this city, home of jazz, could be considered a birthplace of rock 'n' roll. Chuck Berry referred to it in Johnny B. Goode. The second reason is that New Orleans is below sea level and depends on levees.
I now know the meaning is much more literal than that. Don McLean grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y. He went to a bar called "The Levee" to drink and listen to music. The bar closed during McLean's early years, forcing him and "them good ol' boys" to drive across the river to Rye, N.Y. for entertainment. What a nice pun on rye this is. And, if you listen very carefully, it appears McLean is singing "whiskey in Rye" rather than "whiskey 'n' Rye."
I found this out through an email from a native of the area who told me it was common knowledge there. In the summer of '99, I happened to be driving down I-95 when I discovered a Rye exit. I took it and asked the first person I met, a young lady working a concession stand at the oceanside, if she knew anything about McLean's line "whiskey in Rye." She confirmed almost exactly the story I'd gotten from email. (Click here to see the interview.)
And now we know the meaning of another of McLean's clever puns.
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die,
A very clever line by McLean. He makes his point that even the originators of rock have given up while using a Buddy Holly lyric (a twist on "That'll Be the Day"). This, like so many of the lines in the song, plays on words without getting overly cute or tricky.
One might wonder: McLean had, somewhat negatively, called Dylan a jester. Isn't he doing the same? His clever puns, his winding allegory, his use of high and low imagery: is he no different? Furthermore, isn't this song itself, American Pie, more on the order of a Dylan folk song than a Holly dance tune?
It's a complicated question. On the one hand, McLean's life after the song shows that he wasn't just in it for the money. He had a period of self-imposed exile. He never seemed to milk the song for excess commercial gain. Again here he reminds me of Bill Watterson who decided not to follow in the line of Charles Shultz, selling out in every respect, producing a comic strip (Peanuts: RIP, at last) well past the time it had any semblance of humor
On the other hand, one can't help but believe that Don McLean really isn't lamenting the loss of a certain type of music; he's lamenting the loss of his childhood. He spoke well of many of the performers he denoted: Dylan, the Beatles, Janis Joplin, and others.
Don McLean wasn't being clever for clever's sake but for the sake of his theme. He is not a mere jester; he's a poet along the lines of Homer. Anyone who studies this song should admit as much.
My prediction: in the next wave of high school anthologies, this song will find a place. It deserves its place alongside Whitman, Frost, and Poe.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

The song is written about the day the plane crashed with all the music greats of that Era. The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly Richie Valens and patsy cline ( I think I may be wrong about some of the names). The musicans would sometimes get high or stoned and sit around and try to sing or talk about stuff. The song is a tribute to the day the music died.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

I have not analyzed the song verse by verse but clearly 'American Pie' is more complex, and interesting, than anyone here has posited. Sure, Buddy Holly crashed and died but so did Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper--"The Day the Music Died...." "American Pie" could refer to a lyric in another song but the all-American Patsy Cline died in an aircraft accident almost identical to the one that killed Holly, Valens and the Bopper. This was in 1963, four years after the deaths of our boys. "Widowed Bride" is, of course, Holly's widowed bride but it certainly could ALSO refer of Jackie Kennedy, widowed in November, 1963 and/or the wives of ML King or Bobby Kennedy. "Chevy to the Levee but the Levee was dry...good ole boys are drinking whiskey and rye." These are all southernisms. Yes, "The Levee" could be a closed down bar and therefore now "dry", but this song is full of double-entendre's. Rock and Roll was an initially Southern invention. "The Levee was Dry.....This will be the day that I Die.", presents the song's overall negativity and depression. Levees--the barrow pit from which the levee is constructed--is rarely 'dry'. It is usually full of life-filled water.

There are a number of references to Bob Dylan, Elvia and the Beatles. McClean is positive about Elvis, very negative about Dylan and only a little less negative about the Beatles. Dylan is a 'jester'--a clown--and also a thief who steals Elvis' 'thorny crown.' The Beatles, whether they know it or not, are up to their eyeballs in their 'Helter Skelter', which stimulated the crazed Beatle-Lover, Charley Manson, to go on a murder rampage--and incidentally end the naiveté of the 'Love Generation.'

"Lennon [Lenin] reads a book of Marx" is one of the most obvious stanzas in the song. It is also a double entendre. V.I. Lenin was a Marxist who fomented Communist Revolution in Russia. Between Lenin and Stalin somewhere between 20-60 million people were murdered all in the name of Revolution. John Lennon was a gifted and intelligent man but uneducated. Remember the Beatles' idiotic tryst with the Maharishi? Even so, Lennon became enamored with Marxist writings and incorporated Marxian preachments in some of his songs. The best and most famous of these is "Imagine" in which Lennon lyricizes the Communist Manifesto i.e. "Imagine no country, no religion, no possessions. Imagine all the people in perfect peace and harmony."

Finally, some critics have written that McClean 'really dug that rock and roll', referring to the '50s rock and roll of Holly, the Bopper, Elvis and many others. This is likely true but this must be juxtaposed with the fact that most of McClean's sons, including "American Pie" are far more characteristic of late 60's early 70s music which emphasizes lyrics and sometimes intellectualism over "the beat". Remember the 50s when kids went crazy for songs with deliberately simplistic lyrics but were strong on big sound, beat and rhythm. "You ain't nuthin' but a hound dog." "I'm all shook up." "Oh, Donna" and innumerable others make the point. Even the Beatles' early stuff borrowed heavily from this genre, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...." It sold because it was novel, elemental, slightly revolutionary but mostly because kids could rock-out on the dance floor.

Answer 6

Almost every single line in the song has a different meaning, and every line is in relation to something that happened around the world, its really crazy if you can find it.

The day the music died is the name McLean gave to February 3, 1959, a plain carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed, killing all three.

But again, theres something like that for almost every song... you'll have to look it up on wikipedia or something.

Answer 7

Buddy Holly (wake up little susie), Richie Valens (la bamba), and the Big Bopper (chantilly lace) died in an airplane crash.

Answer 8

It was about the end of innocence as we emerged from the 60's into a more complicated time.

Answer 9

There are many people who would make fun of the possibility of altering their destinies. This is because it believes that nobody gets more that exactly what is written in his fate.

Answer 10

The song was about Buddy Holly, and his untimely demise.