1971 Folk Rock Hit, Originally 8 Minutes Long, Was Inspired by the Death of This Music Legend

On February 3, 1959, iconic American musicians BuddyHolly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were involved in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, with pilot Roger Peterson. All four were killed in the crash.

Singer and songwriter Don McLean was a 13-year-old newspaper delivery boy at the time of the fatal accident saying, “I first found out about the plane crash because I was a 13-year-old newspaper delivery boy in New Rochelle, New York, and I was carrying the bundle of the local ‘Standard-Star ‘papers that were bound in twine, and when I cut it open with a knife, there it was on the front page.”

Inspired by the iconic deaths, McLean wrote a song about “the day the music died” for his 1971 album of the same name, “American Pie.”

“American Pie” is not solely about the deaths of the lauded musicians. The lyrics also speak to McLean’s mourning of his childhood heroes and the loss of innocence of his generation. For many years, McLean declined to explain the lyrics, explicitly saying, “They’re beyond analysis. They’re poetry.”

In 2022, when celebrating the song’s 50th anniversary, McLean explained the song was heavily influenced by impressionism and the changing of society that took place throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

The album length of “American Pie” clocks in at 8 minutes and 42 seconds, with the radio/single versions both being just over 4 minutes. At the time of release in 1971, McLean’s full version was the longest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100. For more than 50 years, it held the record for being the longest song to reach No. 1, with the record being broken by Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)” in 2021.

In 2017, McLean’s original recording of “American Pie” was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress. Additionally, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002, and the RIAA ranks it as the 5th greatest song of the 20th century.

While the interpretation of the song has been up for debate for decades, the legacy of “American Pie” is undeniable.

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