The American Pie Blog

A long, long time ago

A quick pause here … this line’s significance is sometimes underestimated because it does more than take us back. It seems to suggest that this will be a chronology of sorts, that the events will follow a time sequence as the song progresses, This is important to understanding the song’s symbolism.

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.

Pretty straight-forward … going back into his childhood, McLean is recalling himself as the teenage musician dreaming of a chance to play at the big dance or record a hit song. To many performers, knowing that your songs make people happy has great value.

But February made me shiver
With every paper I deliver
Bad news on the door step
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died

Again, pretty straight-forward poetry using a quick reversal from the happiness of the first few lines to enhance the drama of the last few. Don McLean, an eighth-grader at the time, had a newspaper route in New Rochelle on February 3, 1959, the day of the plane crash that killed Holly, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and Ritchie Valens in Clear Lake, IA. Holly’s wife of less than one year, Maria Elena, was pregnant at the time but miscarried shortly after that horrible day. As the headlines from Mason City proclaimed, it was the day that the music died. The reference is for all three performers, not just to Buddy Holly. Their music was everything good about early rock and roll … it was fun, you could dance to it, and it sometimes even made you smile (Chantilly Lace).

Refrain

So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die

This is where a number of interpreters head off for Pluto. Rather than looking for the simplest and most obvious answers, they want to find some deep, dark mystery. First, “Miss American Pie” was not the name of the plane that Holly died in. However, I suspect that “Miss American Pie” was a compilation of all the famous “women” in the songs on the 1950’s (especially Holly’s Peggy Sue, Valens’ Donna and Bopper’s “Baby” in Chantilly Lace). These were the all-American girls who lived next door and personified all the good reasons why boys fell in love. These were the girls of rock and roll that we put on pedestals, and some of us guys kept dreaming we would find our slice of Miss American Pie! Some suggest that McLean dated a Miss America candidate … it is certainly a possibility but it is irrelevant in the overall context of the song.

As for driving the Chevy to the levee … I like McLean’s suggestion that it was something boys did in the south, especially Texas. It also refers to a Chevy jingle (On a highway or road along the levee, performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her, life is completer in a Chevy.). “The levee was dry” suggests a drought … symbolically a time of emptiness and despair … certainly a reasonable reaction for the day the music died. Good old boys drink whiskey and rye, especially in cowboy films, reminiscent of “The Searchers” (1956) in which Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) utters, “That’ll be the day!” There is, of course, the obvious reference to Holly’s first hit, “That’ll Be the Day” in which he sings, “That’ll be the day that I die.” It enhances the feelings of loss.

One interpretation cites that a bar called The Levee existed where another popular Iona Prep “bar” of my time, The Beechmont, stood (the corner of North Avenue and Eastchester Road). This is simply not true according to my brother-in-law who graduated Iona in 1969 and lived near The Beechmont (which always was The Beechmont) from 1961. First of all, on February 3, 1959, Don McLean was 13-1/2 years old, in 8th grade and unlikely to enter a bar to drink. Secondly, the “levee” in New Rochelle was an area down by Hudson Park (several miles east of The Beechmont) and home to a bar called The Barge. Finally, Rye is not a city across the river from New Rochelle; rather, it is about 9 miles north on Route 1 along Long Island Sound. I doubt McLean and his buddies were drinking whiskey in Rye, and they certainly weren’t driving a Chevy there as 8th graders.

Go to Verse 2