While there’s general agreement about the day the music died being about McLean hearing about the death of Buddy Holly, there have been conspiracy theories galore about other lyrics, beliefs it predicted the future and that it killed off God.
There are books, websites and no doubt many university theses that dive deeply into its poetry.īut it’s generally understood to be an ode to the end of simple times of the fifties as America entered a turbulent upheaval of the new era an ode to the end of a sweet and good American age. Its 18 pages even reveal a hidden more optimistic ending that never made the recording. The song has long been memorised, sung, analysed and studied endlessly over the last 44 years. Don McLean has just sold the original manuscript of his lyrics to 'American Pie' for $US1.2 million.
