Song Details
- Album Release Date: 2012
- Genre: singer-songwriter
Song Meaning of “American Pie – Live” by Don McLean
The song “American Pie” by Don McLean is perhaps one of the most iconic songs of all time. It is a nostalgic ode to the fragile innocence of America in the 1950s and 1960s and a tribute to the musical artists of that era.
The song starts out as a haunting dirge, with McLean singing about how the music and innocence of America is ‘dyin’.’ He references ‘The Day the Music Died,’ implying that the loss of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper in a plane crash in 1959 marks a turning point in which the golden age of music and the lightheartedness of the past is quickly disappearing. He also talks about ‘the laughter’ and ‘the freedom,’ suggesting that those qualities have slowly been fading away as well.
The chorus brings a more upbeat emotion, with a refrain of “Bye bye Miss American Pie,” which is a nostalgic nod to the sweet spirited all-American girl that symbolizes so much of the era. The song also references the Bible, the books of verse, and allusions to the civil rights movement, giving the song an added depth.
McLean profoundly and poignantly sings about the sadness of a past that we can never go back to, and the bittersweet joy that comes with being alive and growing up in that era.