Music for Roctober - #6 - Don McLean
Let's go back to 1983. Frazee Avenue. Bowling Green, Ohio. My brother's apartment. Fifteen kegs of beer are in the process of being drained and loud music is being played on the stereo - raucous loud music. Undergraduates are yelling into each other's ears, there is a line for the bathroom down the hallway and my brother is standing on the kegs serving. A hundred different agendas are being played out in this way-too-small apartment. Then Don McLean's "American Pie" comes over the speakers and the crowd joins in immediately. By the end of the song we have as close to a harmonic convergence as kegged Busch beer will permit. That is the power of "American Pie".
Fast forward to a few days ago, I am checking YouTube for the best version of the song and Libby (aged 7) is coloring on the sofa. The song comes on and she instinctively starts to sing along. That is the cross-generational power of "American Pie".
Don McLean's #1 song was written in a bar in Saratoga Springs, New York and released in 1971. It was certainly influenced by the death of singer Buddy Holly but the song is so much bigger than that. It is a song about growing up and change and time passing as McLean runs through history in each verse. There are many interpretations of the lyrics; I prefer to enjoy them as Libby sings along. Go ahead, you can sing along too:
Fast forward to a few days ago, I am checking YouTube for the best version of the song and Libby (aged 7) is coloring on the sofa. The song comes on and she instinctively starts to sing along. That is the cross-generational power of "American Pie".
Don McLean's #1 song was written in a bar in Saratoga Springs, New York and released in 1971. It was certainly influenced by the death of singer Buddy Holly but the song is so much bigger than that. It is a song about growing up and change and time passing as McLean runs through history in each verse. There are many interpretations of the lyrics; I prefer to enjoy them as Libby sings along. Go ahead, you can sing along too:
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