[ethereal music]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
- * MTV *
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[wind whooshing]
- * A long, long time ago *
- This could, quite possibly, be the greatest
song in music history.
- * I can still remember *
* How that music used to make me smile *
- There's something magical about it.
It's transcendent.
- * And I knew if I had my chance *
- * That I could make those people dance *
- * And maybe they'd be happy *
- * For a while *
- It feels like it's always existed.
- * So bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- * Drove my Chevy to the levee *
* But the levee was dry *
- * Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
- 90-year-old people to 10-year-old kids,
everybody knows that song.
- * This'll be the day that I die *
- * Did you write the book of love? *
- "American Pie" is an epic.
It's "War and Peace." It's the big novel.
- * If the Bible tells you so? *
- It's woven into the fabric of America and our culture.
- * Do you believe in rock 'n' roll? *
I thought it was a cool idea.
I could go deliver the paper,
and one day there was this story,
three rock 'n' roll stars killed in a plane crash.
Buddy was now dead.
* Well, I know that you're in love with him *
- This is where the music died.
- * Dancin' in the gym *
The country was in an advanced
state of psychic shock.
And so, I said, "I got to have a big song about America."
One day, it all came out like a genie out of a bottle.
I knew I had the tiger by the tail.
* The day the music *
Everything took off like a rocket.
- It went to number one so fast.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- "American Pie" blew up the world.
- * But the levee was dry *
- I think I know the album cover
as much as I know the song.
I mean, Captain America thumb, it's iconic.
- * This'll be the day that I die *
- "American Pie" was really encapsulating
the experience of a whole generation.
- * Now for ten years we've been on our own *
- Everybody can relate to that song.
"American Pie" drew you in deeply.
- * But that's not how it used to be *
I'm trying to do a kaleidoscopic,
dream-like story about America.
* The jester stole his thorny crown *
I say "the jester stole his thorny crown."
Elvis did not have a thorny crown.
"A pink carnation," sure, I went to a lot of proms,
but I never had a pickup truck.
But I could have anything I wanted in my songs.
* I saw Satan laughing with delight *
- It's the kind of song you dream about writing
that has meaning and has depth,
has relevance to generations, you know, ongoing.
all: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- We're in the age of TikTok.
Meanwhile, an eight-minute song is still
getting radio play all over the world.
- * Singin', "This'll be the day that I die" *
It is a masterpiece.
- No one's ever written anything like it since.
- There's a reason it's been around for 50 years.
* The day *
* The music died *
- This is what the power of music is.
- [echoing] * A long, long time ago *
[dreamy music]
You can see the house I grew up in
in New Rochelle, it's still there.
Being in the house with my parents,
who I loved very much,
and they were great people, but it was very restrictive.
I was white, suburban, middle-class.
We believed in God.
We believed in the church.
We believed in our government.
I was ill quite a bit.
I had asthma and I would be out of school
for weeks and weeks,
stuck in the house and looking at kids playing outside.
And I developed differently than they did.
* *
My father's idea of what he wanted for his son
was a West Point guy, an athlete, warrior,
intellectual, crew cut, upright American boy.
And I thought, "I can't be farther apart
from this guy than I am."
- * Well, now, if your baby leaves you *
* And you've got a tale to tell *
* Well, just take a walk *
- And that's when I first heard Elvis Presley.
- * Heartbreak Hotel *
- "Heartbreak Hotel," magic, takes your brains.
- * You'll be lonely *
* You'll be so lonely, you could die *
- It just seemed to me that
that image was a very romantic image.
I've always been in love with romance,
you know, whether it was Robin Hood
or Superman or the Lone Ranger,
and I started thinking I could morph myself
into this somehow, maybe if I could play the guitar.
I've never talked about this in the song all these years,
but I talk about "the sacred store,"
and the sacred store is the House of Music
on Main Street in New Rochelle,
and that's where I bought my records,
and that's where I bought my first guitar.
And I started to learn. I learned three chords,
and I was off to the races, but I drove everybody crazy.
I'd play records over and over and over.
Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent,
all these great groups.
I fell in love with Buddy Holly.
[dreamy music]
* *
He had a rollicking sound.
He was always full of joy and exuberance.
* *
A happy country boy sound
with jingling and jangling guitars.
And his songs were great.
There was something else about Buddy Holly
that he is only 21 or 22.
He had a certain genius.
He was a serious guy, you know.
Country people were serious.
You know, they've been through a lot,
and they worked hard for their money.
I mean, you go to Lubbock, Texas
and all you see are cotton fields.
Holly Tile was the company that the father had.
Buddy would have been laying tile floors
in bathrooms or picking cotton.
- Where do you come from-- Lubbock, Texas?
- Lubbock, Texas, yes. - Right after high school,
you started playing together?
- Yes, sir, that's right. - You were a big hit right
from the start or has it been sort of a long...
- Well, we've had a few rough times, I guess you'd say,
but we've been real lucky getting it this quick.
- He had made recordings in Nashville,
which were not successful.
And then he went to Clovis, Mew Mexico,
to Norman Petty's studio
and recorded many of the same songs,
including "That'll Be The Day,"
and suddenly he had a number one record.
Norman Petty was the difference.
He knew what to do to commercialize Buddy Holly.
There was a--an alchemy.
He made magic.
And knowing it was not only all over the country,
but all around the world.
[eerie atmospheric music]
* *
- We are very proud Iowa farmers.
My grandfather started the tradition
back in the 1920s.
This is my son, and now Andrew
and his cousin are involved in it.
- This field has been in our family for generations,
and it's really important to us
because it's our livelihood,
but also there's no other field in the countryside
that's got more history than this field.
- This is a place where one of the first
big rock 'n' roll tragedies occurred.
It's very simple,
it's in the middle of a cornfield,
it's not fancy, no flashing lights.
* *
This is where the music died.
- * I can't remember if I cried *
* When I read about his widowed bride *
- In 1971, I was just beginning to explore music,
and "American Pie" was one of those songs.
I listened to it over and over again.
I had no idea that it had anything
to do about Clear Lake or the farm that we owned.
- This story in from Clear Lake, Iowa,
three of the nation's top rock 'n' roll singing stars,
Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson,
and Buddy Holly died today with their pilot
in the crash of a chartered plane.
- In 1979, when a local DJ named the Mad Hatter started
the first Buddy Holly tribute,
and then this gentleman, Ken Paquette,
did the research and said,
"Okay, this is where the plane crashed."
[country music]
* *
He put a monument out there,
and people started coming searching for the place,
so I had our welder make an extra big set of glasses,
and I mounted 'em out there,
and of course, that's kind of turned into a little bit
of a monument in itself.
When Don's song came out, it just lit up the enthusiasm
and the interest in Buddy and in that story.
Buddy and Ritchie and The Bopper,
the guys were so young.
Ritchie was only 17.
That fateful night,
they entertained a couple thousand fans.
It all ended out here.
Now this is a pilgrimage.
People from all over the world travel here.
We'll occasionally have a hayride out here,
and we'll sing "American Pie."
Everybody knows that song.
That is the song of our lives.
- * A long, long time ago *
* I can still remember how that music *
* Used to make me smile *
- "American Pie, it's woven into the fabric
of America and our culture.
- * That I could make those people dance *
- It just sort of feels like it's always existed.
It's just ubiquitous and predates
time itself or something.
- * The day the music *
- I'm told we're the world's first all-vocal country band.
all: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- "American Pie," it's one of those songs
that I have known as long as I can remember.
- I've been singing that song my whole life.
- I remember my mother singing that song to me, just as a song
that never leaves you, it's just always there.
- By the time I remember hearing that song on the radio,
I feel like I already knew all the words.
* Did you write the book of love? *
* And do you have faith in God above? *
- When our manager mentioned to us that Don was interested
in doing a special edition of the song
for its 50th anniversary and including us,
we didn't even have to think about it.
- * Can music save your mortal soul? *
- We certainly felt a sense of responsibility,
just being handed the reins
to such an important, iconic song.
- * With a pink carnation and a pickup truck *
- Don put a lot of trust in us, and so, luckily,
he was thrilled with what we came up with.
He just added his vocal to the mix and it was magic.
all: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
- The day the music died was such
an earth-shattering moment,
and then Don actually put it into words,
what everybody was feeling, but wasn't really able to say.
He used such incredible imagery and metaphors
that allowed the audience to inject their own
personal meaning into the song as well.
[dreamy music]
* *
There's a lot of things that can unify us in strange ways.
We're united in our grief and sense of loss.
That is what Don was able
to articulate through "American Pie."
Just the imagery of that chorus alone,
the idea of a bunch of good old boys
drinking whiskey and rye and singing,
"This'll be the day that I die."
It's a horrible thing to be singing about,
yet they're all singing about it together.
- * And the three men I admire most *
* The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost *
- When he wrote it, we were kind of
on the tail end of the two-minute pop song.
Meanwhile, he comes out with this eight-minute song
that gets played on the radio, and that's unheard of.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- Now we're in the age of TikTok
where people don't want to see anything
longer than a few seconds.
Meanwhile, "American Pie" is still
getting radio play all over the world.
- * Singing "This'll be the day that I die" *
- We were on tour in Europe.
I was at some bar at 1:00 in the morning,
and then "American Pie" came on,
and everyone sang every word,
and no one spoke any English.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
- There's something magical about it.
Everyone knows that song.
Everyone on the planet can sing a chorus of that song.
It's transcendent.
- * Singing "This'll be the day that I die" *
[cheers and applause]
[cheerful music]
* *
- My father wanted me to work,
so I thought it was a cool idea,
I could go deliver the paper,
and that would be fun.
I had a Sears Roebuck fat tire bike.
It had no gears or anything.
It was like riding a cast-iron lawnmower,
is what it was like.
I like the romance of throwing the paper,
and "Yes, I'm the paper boy, that's right.
I'll have your paper tomorrow, don't worry."
You know, this kind of thing.
It was cold.
February in those days was cold.
[echoing] * February made me shiver *
And you can see my house,
there's kind of a stoop, there's a cement block,
and they would throw the papers on that,
and they'd be bound up,
and so you'd cut it open
and start putting the papers in your sack.
And one day I opened it up, and there was this story.
[echoing] * Bad news on the doorstep *
Three rock 'n' roll stars killed in plane crash,
and it was my guy who was killed.
Buddy was now dead.
I was in absolute shock.
Man, I read the whole story.
I think I might have actually cried, it was that personal.
I felt like, you know, you lost your first love,
or you broke up with your first girlfriend.
You know, that dark, horrible thing
that comes over a teenager, you know,
and it's like the end of the world.
* *
All of a sudden, you get this horrible death
personally affecting me with this pain
that I never had experienced before.
So it just hurt.
Can't intellectualize it. It hurt me.
And then when that "Buddy Holly Story: Volume 1"
came out right after,
that just did me in
because there were so many beautiful songs on there.
[echoing] * Something touched me deep inside *
You know, I was so touched and moved
by this beautiful face,
and nobody talked about him 'cause he was dead.
Americans didn't talk about dead people.
Onward.
[eerie atmospheric music]
* *
- The original Winter Dance Party,
it was kind of a mishmash.
It was kind of a last minute tour
that was put together all over the Midwest
in the middle of January, when it was cold and windy
and snowy and had a lousy bus without a heater.
The heater kept breaking down, so you can imagine
how cold it was on that bus.
[rockabilly music]
* *
Buddy and Ritchie and The Bopper,
these were the rock 'n' roll stars of the day.
They all had top hits, and it was a thrill to have
this group of artists come to little old Clear Lake, Iowa
to perform on the stage at the Surf Ballroom.
* *
From the Surf, they were scheduled to go to Minnesota.
Even in today's day and age, those are long treks.
So when they got to Clear Lake,
Buddy was tired of riding on that cold bus,
and so he asked Carol Anderson,
who was the manager of the Surf,
to find a plane so they could fly to Fargo
and play in Moorhead, Minnesota.
[muffled music]
[music getting louder]
[Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba"]
- * Para bailar La Bamba *
* Para bailar La Bamba *
* Se necesito una poca de gracia *
- The show that night was a fabulous show.
I mean, you can imagine.
It was unbelievable.
- * Arriba, y arriba *
* Y arriba, y arriba *
* Por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti *
* Yo no soy marinero *
* Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán *
[muffled] * Soy capitán, soy capitán *
- The show ended about after midnight.
Waylon Jennings and Buddy had this exchange.
Buddy said, "I hope the bus breaks down."
And Waylon says, "I hope the plane crashes."
- [muffled] * Para bailar La Bamba *
* Se necesito una poca de gracia *
[tinny] * Una poca de gracia *
* Para mi, para ti, y arriba, y arriba *
[somber music]
* *
- And Carol was the manager, he was the one that put 'em
in the station wagon and took 'em out
to the Mason City Airport.
- I put 'em in the airplane,
and I talked to all three of those boys that night
before they got in the airplane.
They were just kids.
* *
- They took off about 1:00, and to be honest,
they weren't in the air very long.
- I could see the taillight of the airplane,
and the aircraft, in my opinion,
was going down slowly,
and it went down about three miles northwest of us.
I said to the man in the tower with me,
who was a weatherman, that the airplane was going down,
and he said, "No, that's an optical illusion,"
but I'd watched a lot of airplanes,
and I hoped I was wrong.
- Well, the FAA report says it was pilot error.
Roger Peterson, who was a young Clear Lake kid,
got disoriented and actually just wasn't able
to read the instruments correctly,
got discombobulated, and thought he was going up,
and he was really descending,
and just flew the plane into the ground.
They couldn't have been in the air more
than three or four minutes, maybe four or five miles.
Their plane came down at a very high rate
of descent because one of the wings cut
a trench into the frozen ground.
They skidded about 500 feet with the tail going up,
and because there was a little bit of a ridge
at the fence line.
Jerry Dwyer actually got up the next morning
and went out and got in a plane,
'cause he'd heard that they had not
reached their destination.
In just a couple of minutes after he was airborne,
he radioed back to the airport,
and then they called the Sheriff.
- I did call to make sure
that the people got out there as quick as they could.
I was hoping that some of the people were still alive
or maybe all of 'em,
and it turned out they weren't,
any of them.
- It was a very tragic scene.
A lot of officials, photographers.
Something that Clear Lake never wished to be famous for.
- Three of the nation's top rock 'n' roll singing stars,
Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson,
and Buddy Holly died today with their pilot
in the crash of a chartered plane.
- A lot of family members heard it on the news
rather than being notified.
So it was a gruesome scene, and it was a real tragedy.
* *
[laid-back music]
* *
- I grew up in the middle of America.
I grew up in Oklahoma.
Dad worked in the oil fields,
Golden Gloves boxing champion,
former Marine Corps Korean War.
My mom was a housewife,
former singer who gave it up
to raise six children, and I was the baby of the six.
Mom loved Patsy. She loved Aretha, Jack Greene.
Dad was more of the working man's stuff,
so Jones, Haggard, Buck Owens,
and there I was, the guy that was taking it all in.
Me and my mom hung out a lot because I was the baby.
So some days, you know, you'd be sick for school.
We had one car, so we'd have to drive Dad in
and out of Oklahoma City and go pick him up.
And in that car ride,
I remember hearing "American Pie"
for the first time and just loving it.
- * Oh, and there we were, all in one place *
* A generation lost in space *
- The youth that's in those drums,
the youth that's in that piano, that's all over the place.
- * Come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick *
- And this soft voice that is so confident
it earns its place among all that activity going on.
It's fabulous.
- * Oh, and as I watched him on the stage *
- So I knew that song backward and forward
before I could ever play guitar or anything.
What I didn't know was how much of a song
it would become for me.
* Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
Especially early in your career,
it was fun, man, you'd try and shake it up,
so you'd do sing-alongs at the end of the night,
and "American Pie" was probably 90% of the time.
* Boys was drinking whiskey and rye *
It was always what we ended Willies with
when I played colleges.
We get a record label, and probably about the third day,
there's a thing called Bull Run.
Bull Run is this thing in DC
where they're gonna put about 12 acts on stage.
People are going to know the last two or three,
but all the ones up front, they kind of sit through.
I'm one of those sit through guys,
'cause we don't have anything out yet.
Right after the first song, the big downbeat,
something goes wrong,
Everything is out,
everything except my guitar and my mic.
And the first line out of my mouth--
I'll remember it the rest of my life, was...
* A long, long time ago *
And you just watch the whole place stop.
The guy going up to get a beer stopped, turns, and you see it.
They came in.
They don't know who this guy is,
but he's singing probably the greatest song
in music history,
and they're all singing with you.
And at that point, not only did I have them,
more importantly, I knew they had me.
But to take it on to the next level
and see it happen there too,
it was just amazing.
[eerie atmospheric music]
* *
- I had been doing extremely poorly in school.
I was a freshman at Iona Preparatory School,
Catholic, taught by Irish Christian brothers.
They looked like priests, and it was very Dickensian.
My mother had gone away, and I'm waiting
for this horrible report card to come home.
My father's in a good mood. You know, I think, "Oh, man,
when this happens, he ain't gonna be in a good mood."
So the report card comes.
My father, he looked at this thing,
and he said, "This is awful,
"and you cannot go on like this,
and what is gonna become of you?"
Course, it wasn't low-key. He was yelling, you know,
'cause he had a temper.
He felt all this silliness with music was impinging on
and diminishing my schoolwork.
So I went to sleep.
It's like 1:00 in the morning, and all of a sudden,
my father has his arms around his chest.
He comes in to me and he's crying.
He's saying, "God, help me."
Ambulance came, the police came,
and they had him wrapped up on a stretcher.
They're bringing him down the stairs,
and he just looked up at me and he smiled.
Two hours later, I'm sleeping.
The door opens, and my uncle is there.
He said, "There's some bad news for you, Donny,"
and he told me.
"Your father died tonight."
[somber music]
I am ruined.
I mean, I was really mad.
That was very painful, and it lasted a long time.
It was almost like the happy '50s were over.
When my father died, home left me,
'cause it wasn't there anymore.
You can imagine how important music became to me,
creating something out of myself,
moving away from all this.
Once I had the guitar going, this folk thing started.
I'd just write songs and follow my instincts.
And I started playing around town.
I would plan a concert almost every month.
It was now about 1964, so I was about 18,
and I had quit school
'cause I wanted to be a singer.
- * John Henry, when he was a baby *
* Settin' down on his mammy's knee *
- But now I was learning songs
that had substance of some kind.
They weren't little songs. They were big songs.
Woody Guthrie's "Roll On, Columbia"
was a big song about the Columbia River
and the men that built the Grand Coulee Dam.
- * There's a great and peaceful river *
* In a land that's fair to see *
- A song like "Roll On, Columbia,"
you start about talking about
our country took the challenge,
so you describe how it was.
- * Roll, Columbia, won't you roll, roll, roll *
- And each time, "Roll on, Columbia."
- * Won't you roll, roll, roll *
- And then you're talking about these mighty men labored
by day and by night to build this thing.
- * Seldom you see such a beautiful sight *
- Third verse, you're understanding
what's happening.
And by the fourth verse, you hear that chorus,
I mean, it all makes sense.
That's the key.
- * Roll on, Columbia, roll on *
* Roll on, Columbia, roll on *
* Your power is turning our darkness to dawn *
* So roll on *
- "Tutti Frutti" and "Don't Be Cruel"
are fabulous small songs,
and they changed the world with those simple songs,
but these songs were more complicated
and more interesting in terms of what they're teaching you
about your country and about yourself.
You know, who are we as Americans?
A guy like me thought,
"Wow, gee, I could write a song like that
"with a little chorus in between and a little story,
and a little chorus, and a little story,"
and that's what "American Pie" does.
- * Well, come on, let's go, let's go *
* Let's go, little darlin' *
* And tell me that you'll never leave me *
- I'm Connie Valens.
Ritchie Valens was my brother.
- * Again, again, and again *
* Well now, swing *
- The classic car show, it's about the time,
it's about the '50s, just like my brother.
You know, there's still an innocence there.
There's a purity.
[gentle music]
* *
We were born in the San Fernando Valley.
Ritchie, he was just real warm,
real loving, very protective.
He discovered he was a pretty good singer and guitar player.
My mom used to say he could make that guitar cry.
The next thing you know, he's touring.
Everything was just happening so fast.
He was 17 with a big dream.
My sister and I were walking home from school,
and somebody said, "Your brother's dead."
We just held hands and started running towards our house.
[somber music]
Mama was sitting in the middle of the living room,
and she turned around and looked at me,
and she just looked so sad,
and she just said
that Ritchie had been killed.
I remember just dropping to my knees
and putting my head in her lap,
and she just put her hand on my head.
And that was the beginning
of a very dark time in our lives.
* *
The Surf is the cathedral of rock 'n' roll.
This is the last place he was,
and a little part of him will always be here,
and every time I walk in, I feel it.
And sometimes I just come up on the stage,
and I stand where he stood.
And it's like he's still with us.
He always will be.
- * Oh, Donna, oh, Donna *
- I first heard of Don McLean and "American Pie"
in the '70s when it was released.
- * Donna was her name *
- I thought he did a beautiful job.
Obviously, he felt something
very near and dear in the tragedy.
It was so heartfelt,
and the lyrics are just beautiful.
I thought it was pretty cool
that somebody would care enough to do that.
- * Oh, Donna, oh *
- We were all very touched.
It was another little bit of healing for our family.
- There was this inch-square advertisement
in the "New York Times,"
said, "Pete Seeger sings for Hudson River sloop."
I got in my car, and it was a little concert
in Garrison, New York,
directly across from West Point.
And then I find Osborne's Castle,
which is where this event was held.
The castle was way up on the hill,
but there was this low area with rolling fields.
- * I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield *
* Down by the riverside *
- Seeger, he plays banjo on this plywood stage
and the one microphone,
and then during a break, I introduced myself,
and he knew who I was because I'd been writing him
since junior high school.
And he liked me and he asked me to be on a concert in 1968.
And I got right involved with that, right away.
all: * Bye, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye *
- He took me under his wing and brought me around
and had me open for him or be a guest on his show,
and then he put this gang of singers together,
and I was part of that.
- * Well, I thought I heard the captain say *
- Suddenly, I'm in this whole world.
It's art, it's recordings, it's live performing.
Seeger took us to the Newport Folk Festival in 1969.
That was a big deal.
It's still one of the high points of my entire life.
Van Morrison, James Taylor, Muddy Waters was there.
Somehow or other,
they let the Everly Brothers come to Newport--
rock 'n' roll.
- * Gimme rock 'n' roll music *
* Whoo, any old way you choose it *
- Wow.
They came on stage, and they were incredible.
- * If you knew, Peggy Sue *
* Just how my heart yearned for you, oh, Peggy *
- I had been reading, you know,
what little bit I could, and I knew
that the Everlys were very close to Buddy Holly.
- * I need you, Peggy Sue *
- So after the show was over,
I had to say hello to them.
So I went to Phil Everly, and I said,
"You know, I know that you knew Buddy Holly.
Could you tell me a little bit about him and what happened?"
He said, "We were very good friends," he said,
"And Buddy decided to take a plane
to get out ahead of the tour to get his laundry done."
"He died for dirty laundry," I thought to myself. Wow.
Man, he's a human being
with a sack of dirty clothes.
Gee, the whole thing started coming back.
Front and center, it was absolutely haunting me now.
- * A long, long time ago *
When you look back at Garth Brooks' career,
if you remember anything from it,
you'll remember Central Park will be the crown jewel.
1997, August 7, beautiful night.
* And I knew if I had my chance *
- Garth Brooks, I'd heard about him singing
"American Pie" from the beginning
when he was just getting started.
Then bigger, bigger, bigger, every year, bigger,
always singing this song.
So the big word now is that he's gonna play Central Park.
- * With every paper I'd deliver *
- So I get a fax, he wants me to be on the show.
- * I couldn't take one more step *
We had a million people show up, live TV.
It could not be going better,
and then we go into our final leg of our stuff,
and knowing that you're about to tell these people
that Don McLean's gonna come out and sing "American Pie,"
you were 16-foot tall.
You knew it.
Ladies and gentlemen,
it's a great honor and a great privilege,
Mr. Don McLean.
[cheers and applause]
And when I introduced him, God, he looked fantastic.
He came out with that smile,
and he gets to be the guy in the cape.
And he wears the cape well, man.
- Sing the chorus again!
* Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
- He comes out, and he just gets
that big old guitar going, and it's just a little slower,
so you see all million people just kind of lean in,
and everybody's inner child comes out.
- * And I went down to the sacred store *
* Where I'd heard the music years before *
* But the man there said the music wouldn't play *
I like a crowd that's happy,
And they were very happy.
It was a summer night, and they were loose,
and they were ready, and I love that.
both: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
- "American Pie" isn't about a nation as much
as it is about that drive of independence,
that drive of discovery,
that drive of believing anything is possible.
Freedom within you.
Okay now, New York.
We want to hear just you guys singing.
* We were singin'... *
all: * Bye-bye... *
- People found a road map in this song
that is a million different things
to a million different people.
"American Pie" is one of those few songs
you can stand behind and go,
"This is what the power of music is."
both: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- Talk about the perfect night needs the perfect ending,
how about pulling one of the greatest
singer-songwriter artists in history out?
How about him singing his ass off,
and then, oh, yeah, this could quite possibly be
the greatest song in music history
that you get to end the biggest night of your career on.
Don McLean!
[cheers and applause]
I think you're looking at a 50-year-old song
that gets prettier every year,
classier every year.
This thing-- this thing is timeless,
because no one's ever written anything like it since.
[country music]
* *
- I graduated in 1968
with this degree that I knew I'd never use.
In 1969, I had just been out of school a year
and I had a three-album deal with Media Arts Records.
* And if she asks you why *
* You can then tell her that I told you *
* That I'm tired of castles in the air *
I moved up to the Hudson River.
* Hills of forest green *
* Where the mountains touch the sky *
I lived in this little gate house
to an estate in Cold Spring, New York.
It was pretty primitive.
No heat, very cold in the winter,
but I rented it very inexpensively.
* Save me from all the trouble and the pain *
Up on the second floor,
there was a tiny little bedroom,
and there was a chair I put rockers on,
and I would rock on that thing
and type on my little typewriter and write songs.
* Why I can't remain *
I was writing furiously now.
I was inspired by the people that I met,
the artists, the writers,
the scientists, the political people.
And the first album I made was called "Tapestry."
And I'm making "Tapestry" in 1969
in Berkeley, California, and there'd be a small riot
every day I was making that record.
They are gassing the guys coming to the sessions,
like, every day, so I'm thinking,
it's crazy, what's gonna happen to the country now?
Things are getting worse.
We had had numerous assassinations
throughout the '60s.
The Kennedy assassination,
Martin Luther King,
and RFK.
We had the war in Vietnam.
Rage against Nixon
and the chaotic insanity that was out there.
It broke up families,
tearing the whole place apart.
The country was in an advanced state
of psychic shock.
Drugs everywhere. Everybody's smoking dope
and sleeping with everybody else.
And all this bedlam and riots and burning cities,
and I'm always standing back trying to read the signs.
All right, what's this mean?
You know, and tried to put it somehow
in my simple way into some of these songs.
I was working on this second record,
but I wasn't happy with it,
and so I said, "I got to have a big song about America."
I just really knew I wanted to do this.
One day, I was up there sitting on the little bed,
and I turned this tape recorder on,
and I just started singing...
* A long, long time ago *
* I can still remember how that music used to make me smile *
[recording] * And I knew if I had my chance *
* That I could make those people dance *
* And maybe they'd be happy for a while *
* But February made me shiver *
* With every paper I'd deliver *
* Bad news on the doorstep *
* I couldn't take one more step *
* I can't remember if I cried *
* When I read about his widowed bride *
[live] * But something touched me deep inside *
* The day the music died *
I said, whoa.
What is that?
This whole thing was coming up in me,
for all those years before of thinking of Buddy,
and it all came out right through
to the day the music died.
Every single word I wrote just came
like a genie out of a bottle.
And I said to myself, "Wow, I got something."
So I'm thinking as a few weeks went by,
I don't want this to be a ballad,
so I got to write a hot chorus.
I waited a long time,
and then I came up with this crazy chorus.
[recording] * So bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* I drove me Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
* Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
* And singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
* This'll be the day that I die *
I had already written about the idea,
the Holly thing was now right front and center,
and so I said, "This'll be the day that I die."
I had to have that in there.
You know, that way I keep it flowing forward in the chorus.
It was from, "That'll Be the Day That I Die."
Buddy learned that phrase
from "The Searchers," the John Wayne movie
where the Duke says, "That'll be the day."
And there was a song that Pete Seeger used to sing,
and it was called "Bye-bye, My Roseanna."
And he would sing...
both: * Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye *
* Bye-bye, my Roseanna *
And that "bye-bye" thing stayed in my head,
I think, from that one, so I put it in there.
I chose "American Pie," because you're as American,
as apple pie, but I just dropped the apple out,
and I said, "American Pie, whoa, that's great."
I knew I had the tiger by the tail.
[stirring music]
I got this hot chorus,
and I got this beautiful opening,
and now I'm thinking, well, where do I go with this?
'Cause I want to write a song about America,
but I don't want to write a song
like anybody ever wrote about America before.
[birds chirping]
[stirring music]
* *
- I was second-generation,
'cause I grew up in a Greek household.
I was born in San Francisco, only there for a year,
in LA another year, and then grew up in Gary, Indiana.
Before even I'm an artist,
I'm somebody who's just interested in the humanities
and in history, you know, and philosophy,
especially, and poetry.
And a lot of these people that I've sculpted
have pressed the boundaries of things.
They wanted to see a better world,
they wanted to be part of that.
Don, I had seen him in a show,
"The American Dream Machine," and I thought, wow.
It was so sensitive,
and he was reshaping how I thought about the ecology.
I said I'd like to sculpt him,
and I think the first time he sat,
he played the guitar for ten hours straight.
Then he came here and did the same thing
right in this very room.
He doesn't miss a thing.
He's very open to the muse,
so all that goes into the music.
"American Pie" is "War and Peace."
It's the "Moby Dick." It's the big novel.
He has a narrative like a dream.
You create all the characters in your dreams,
so you're part of all of them.
You know, the jester and the king.
He was there at the right time and captured so much
of that history that he was part of too,
but he knows that history so well.
If Don hadn't written "American Pie,"
no one would ever have written it.
See, it's unique to who he was,
where in space and time he grew up.
We're in front of my Freedom Sculpture.
You see the struggle to break free.
And I wanted to put a poet in my sculpture,
and the poet in my life, besides reading Robert Frost
and T.S. Eliot and others, was Don McLean.
Don's song, "American Pie," is an epic song,
not just because of its length,
but because of its scope,
and I wanted to have some sense of that in my sculpture.
"American Pie" is an open-ended piece.
It's not so specific
that you can't put yourself in there.
What happens with Don McLean's song,
and with this for me, is if you leave it open-ended,
you're inviting people to participate and to have
a dialogue with you, to make themselves part of it,
and they become very emotionally involved.
With Don, "American Pie", there are little mysteries,
and Don is about mystery with his music.
He even talks about his song, "American Pie,"
being a kind of a dream.
Turning your dreams into reality
is what we do as artists.
[Tim Hardin's "Bird on the Wire"]
* *
I was working on this "American Pie" song,
and I had eight or nine songs
that were going to go on the album,
and now the question was how to make
a good record out of it.
- * I have tried in my way *
- I heard a couple of records,
one by Tim Hardin called "Bird on a Wire."
- * Tried in my way *
- Ooh, I liked that record.
There was some nice things on there.
- * Free *
- Ed Freeman is the producer,
so I said, I want this guy, Ed Freeman.
- Don came over to my apartment in New York
and played me some songs, and I wasn't
all that impressed, frankly.
But I needed a job, so I thought, well, okay.
And then, slowly, as we started working,
I started realizing, oh, wait a minute,
this guy is the real deal.
- I had the album, I knew how I wanted it to sound,
I had the producer.
It was all progressing, but I didn't have the big one,
and the big one had to blow them all away.
- I remember Don played me the first verse
and chorus of "American Pie,"
and he said he hadn't finished writing it at that point,
so I said, "You should finish that,
that it sounds like it could be a hit."
- Now I'm thinking, well, where do I go with this?
'Cause I want to write a song about the new America,
which is rock 'n' roll, which is people's involvement
in politics and the connection between all that,
rather than, you know, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee,"
or "This Land is your Land."
* So bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* I drove my Chevy to the levee *
The chorus came out, and then when I had that,
I said, well, I've got the engine now
to get this thing going.
All I've got to do is sing the slow part
of the song to a rock 'n' roll beat.
In other words, and take "A long, long time ago.
Did you write the book of love?"
It's the same thing, sped up to rock 'n' roll.
* Did you write the book of love? *
* And do you have faith in God above? *
And it must have been a month or two later,
I wrote all the verses in, like, an hour.
* Do you believe in rock and roll? *
I was building it. I could hear it.
I could feel it, that something was going on,
bigger than me.
I was trying to create some sort of an abstract,
dream-like story about America.
* Well, I know that you're in love with him *
* I, I saw you dancing in the gym *
The song came to me in one shot.
There were a lot of spiral notebook pages,
and I say how the song is gonna be constructed,
I make a little blueprint of the song.
* In a coat he borrowed from James Dean, and a voice *
After I wrote the whole thing, I'm sure I sat down,
and I was still trying to figure out
how to get out of it.
* And when he'd had enough of that *
* He pinched the queen and passed the hat *
You know, it couldn't end and it couldn't fade,
so I didn't know what to do.
So I thought, well, the only thing I can do
is slow down like it started.
Perfect. Exactly right.
* And the three men I admire most *
* The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost *
- Then, of course, he finished "American Pie," and I thought,
well, no radio station is gonna play this thing
because it's 8.5 minutes long,
but it's a really good song.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
I just knew I had something
that I thought was incredibly great and fun,
but that nobody else might dig at all.
* Singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
That's enough for today, [laughs]
[martial music]
- Welcome to Philadelphia.
It's a beautiful city on a beautiful day,
and it's my pleasure to show you my hometown.
This building right here is the true
ground zero of the United States.
Independence Hall established justice.
This is where the Declaration of Independence
"promote the general welfare,"
The articles of Confederation
"ensure domestic tranquility,"
and the Constitution of the United States
were all written and signed.
That is the birthplace of the United States.
My name is Clark DeLeon, and I saw Don McLean sing
"American Pie" for the first time.
[dreamy music]
The story was that Don performed "American Pie"
for the first time at Temple University,
but I know this happened at St. Joe's University
at the field house.
I am a columnist at the "Philadelphia Inquirer,"
so I wrote about it, I talked to Don McLean
and I just set the record straight.
And then when I called him up, he readily admitted it.
* *
It was March, it was a rainy day.
My wife and I went to see Laura Nyro.
Now, Don McLean was just a throw in and the opening act.
So we got there, and this field house,
I remember we were sitting in the side.
He came out and was just-- immediately had the crowd,
but then he said, "I've got this new song.
It's so new, I haven't even learned all the words."
And he said, "I'm gonna need some help
"from the audience here.
Can you--" and he holds it to a young woman.
"Would you mind holding these up?"
while he began the song.
- * A long, long time ago *
* I can still remember how that music *
* used to make me smile *
In '70, I was still doing double bills,
and I was opening for Laura Nyro.
After I had written the song
and I had all the handwritten pages and stuff,
I went and typed up something so I could remember it,
and I seem to remember that I had a little girl come
out of the crowd, and I gave her the lyrics to hold,
and I sang the song.
* And while Lennon read a book on Marx *
- The actual singing of the song got lost
in my memory of all these words, you know,
and you didn't know what the song was about,
you just knew it had a really snappy chorus.
And of course, by the end of it,
everyone's singing "American Pie."
It was great.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- What was the crowd reaction?
- Not much. Okay.
Because the song was so different,
they never heard anything like it.
* This'll be the day that I die *
You know, you can get immediate reaction
from an audience, it doesn't necessarily
mean the song's any good.
You know, this had to be made into a record.
* The day that I die *
- By the end of the song, you knew something was going on.
He said, you might be hearing this soon.
He said that from the stage,
and he was right.
[atmospheric music]
- One of the most talented young singer-songwriters
I know, his name is Don McLean,
and he's just written a brand-new song
that has got me bugged.
I can't get it out of my head,
even though I can't sing it right.
It's a history of rock 'n' roll in six verses,
and it's got a beautiful chorus.
Now, believe it or not, this is the first time
I've ever sung the song.
* Long, long time ago, I can still remember *
* How that music used to make me smile *
- The record label, they weren't entirely
secure about Don at all.
At one point, the head of A&R called me up and said,
"This guy is a no-talent."
Those were his exact words.
- * The day the music died *
Now, I suppose I have the drummers
and everybody else coming in here.
- We recorded in studio A
at the Record Plant on 48th Street.
- We started to work together.
It was a contentious relationship.
- We had some terrible disagreements.
We used to stand out in the hallway,
and I would start conversations with,
"The trouble with you is, Don..."
[laughs] You know?
- Oh, well, he didn't even want me
to play guitar on the record.
- But I did not appreciate his rhythm guitar playing,
and originally I wanted to replace it
with a studio guitarist.
- I said, well, I'm playing guitar on the record, okay?
Here I was, coming into his life as crazy as I could be.
He wasn't all that sane either,
but at the same time, he brought in wonderful
players and wrote some beautiful strings.
He was very talented.
And so, I was being constantly thrilled.
I had "Empty Chairs,"
I had "Crossroads," I had "Winter Wood."
I had the album, but I didn't have the big one.
* Did you write the book of love? *
* Do you have faith in God above? *
- "American Pie," we put together
in the rehearsal studio.
Don was not really comfortable playing with a rhythm section.
What I did with Don is I got him together
with a couple of players who were very good,
but weren't hardcore studio players,
and we rehearsed for two weeks.
- * Well, I know that you're in love with him *
- It was just myself, Don, Freeman,
and I believe, the drummer, Roy Markowitz.
So it was just Don and a rhythm section,
kind of bare bones.
- We started rehearsals. This is a struggle.
In a way, "American Pie," it kept sounding like a polka,
and it really annoyed me.
I said, this is really bad.
The day we're recording "American Pie,"
we still didn't have it right.
The groove, we don't have it.
To Ed Freeman's credit, he would come up
with things that would just save everything,
and he brings a young man
to the session named Paul Griffin.
- We added the electric guitar
and Paul Griffin on piano at the last minute.
I had worked with Griffin before.
I knew he was the right guy.
[piano music]
- Griffin had never heard the song in his life,
so here we are trying it for the first time.
* *
- We stumbled through a few takes.
Paul Griffin, he didn't really know what to do
with the first verse, and he was very nervous.
* *
- And they put my guitar in his earphones.
[guitar riffing]
And I hit that thing hard, and I play it loud.
And all of a sudden, Griffin, he starts playing this thing.
[lively piano]
He's going, "Whoa!" And he starts playing
the piano like a gospel stride piano.
* *
He's just rolling and rocking
and kicking it here and backing off there and,
you know, just changing everything
as we're moving along and building from verse to verse.
- Paul Griffin was the hero.
He was just an amazing cat.
Gospel, jazz, chops--
just such a monster.
- * Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
I'm kicking his ass, you know, and he's kicking my ass,
and the two of us together making the drummer go
where he's supposed to go,
and everybody else falls in line.
- The track was just, like, so rocking, man.
- Well, I knew we were where we were supposed to be.
It felt great. It was jumping and,
you know, it was what I wanted.
* Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- There was that one take where it was just magic,
and it just happened.
- * Boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
Paul Griffin, he came in at the last moment,
and Hail Mary pass, saved the whole dang thing.
I said, that's it!
- When they finished, I just hit the talk back,
and I said, "Y'all better come in here
and take a listen to this."
And everybody was high-fiving
each other and dancing around.
It was clear to everybody,
we all knew it was great.
[dreamy music]
* *
Well, then we did the vocals.
- I sang the song probably about 30 times,
singing things that were very riffy, you know, high notes.
Ed didn't like that.
- We went to the mat about that more than once.
What I ended up doing is recording a lot of vocals
and then splicing together the parts
that I considered iconic.
But we got it, in the end.
- Well, finally, we got a coherent mix and vocal.
Everything was right, and it was very good.
- I think the only thing
that we were in agreement about,
is that we were both fiercely committed
to this song being a masterpiece.
We were not leaving the studio
until this thing was brilliant,
and we didn't, and it is.
[country music]
* *
- You have freedom to be whoever you want to be.
You have a right to dream in the US.
It's the American Dream.
RCA Studios is definitely one of the most
beautiful studios I've ever been in my entire life.
My second record,
"Different Kinds of Light," I cut here.
But now I've got to return and do this amazing song here.
* February made me shiver *
[indistinct]
"American Pie" in the UK,
literally everywhere at the end of a night.
Yeah, everyone will have a beer in hand
and be singing that in a comraderie way.
I just remember being extremely struck by that song.
This thing about the melody that feels completely timeless.
- Are you ready? - Yeah, I'll give it a go,
see what happens.
* A long, long time ago *
- Think it's the album cover, right?
I think I know the album cover
as much as I know the song.
I mean, the Captain America thumb,
I mean, come on.
It's this chord.
- Yeah, I think it's-- - Whatever that is.
Honestly, this song is terrifying to cut.
I woke up this morning, had a little panic attack about it.
I think she did too, because it's such an iconic
song you've heard a million times.
It is so ingrained in people's mind,
and so to even dare touch it
or try to reinvent it is pretty crazy.
- * A long, long time ago, I can still remember *
* How that music used to make me smile *
* And I knew if I had my chance *
It made me feel sad when I was singing the start of the song.
The somberness of, you know, "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie,"
the story of that, I felt that pretty heavy today.
* So bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
To be telling a story like Don's,
to be telling a story like "American Pie,"
with Dave, with these incredible musicians,
and to be a part of that, I feel, like,
genuinely, truly honored.
* This'll be the day that I die *
It is a masterpiece.
There's a reason it's been around for 50 years.
* Oh, did you write the book of love? *
* And do you have faith in God above? *
* If the Bible tells you so? *
- I'm Rudy Perez, and I was born in Pinar Del Río, Cuba.
I remember the first time I heard "American Pie,"
it must have been in '76.
It was a song that drew you in deeply.
- * Real slow *
- Everybody can relate to that song.
"American Pie" crossed generations
and is still resonating with people today.
- * You both kicked off your shoes *
* Man, I dig those rhythm and blues, oh *
- With the turmoil that's still going on,
that song is still very up-to-date.
I mean, it's just magical.
- * But I knew I was out of luck the day *
- When I listen to "American Pie,"
it just reminds me of what America means to me.
America means freedom.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
* But the levee was dry *
- I think the song "American Pie" has just always
echoed through the United States' history.
It's almost like a national anthem of sorts
to a lot of people.
- * This'll be the day that I die *
"Newsweek" magazine came out with this big article
about the top ten dying cities in the United States.
My hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan, was one of them,
and we were like, you know what,
we need to strike back against this.
- * When the jester sang for the king and queen *
- We were like, let's make this lip dub video
and just pack it full of everyone
with all the energy and fight back
and say, this is who we are.
The track that I chose, "American Pie,"
it felt so full of Americana
and this hope for the future,
and it felt representative of the city
and what we were trying to do.
- * No verdict was returned *
- We loved it because it spoke to dark times
in our country's history, as well as to our hope
that we could change it and that we could
uplift ourselves to a higher place.
- * The music died *
- Grand Rapids, Michigan was "American Pie."
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- All of these people singing it
out in the streets together,
they associated with that song,
and they knew that it meant something
and that it did represent what this town was about,
the all-American story that we still idealize,
that we still want to be true.
- * The day *
* The music died *
[funky music]
* *
- "American Pie" really hit the nail on the head.
The record company, they loved it
and sent me over to a man named George Whiteman,
who was a fashion photographer,
and he had a big studio and long-legged ladies were
coming in and kissing Georgie, "Oh, Georgie."
He says, "Hi Don, you know, I heard the record.
Great record. Come on inside. I'm gonna paint your thumb."
So he painted my thumb,
and then I looked down the guitar.
And the thing is that there are children's
nursery rhymes in "American Pie."
You know, "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick."
So he went one step further--
"Little Jack Horner sat in the corner,
"eating his Christmas pie,
put in his thumb and pulled out a plum,
and said, what a good boy am I."
That's not in the song, but the implication is that,
you now, it's another nursery rhyme.
I said, absolutely right, perfect.
I would have never thought of it in 100 million years.
[stirring music]
And then, about two weeks later, we get the word
that United Artists is buying Media Arts Records.
Mainly because they love "American Pie."
They think it's a hit record and a hit album,
and they're all excited.
* *
Everything took off like a rocket.
* Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
* But the levee was dry *
- It went from zero to number one so fast.
- * This'll the day that I die *
* This'll be the day that I die *
"American Pie" blew up the world.
* Now, for ten years we've been on our own *
* And moss grows fat *
- The album and the single became number one,
and it stayed up there for weeks and weeks.
- It was the longest hit record
that had ever been released.
- Three minutes was the limit to any song,
but "American Pie" just broke that rule.
It was just a complete phenomenon.
- People heard the short version of the song
on the radio, and they heard the long version on the album,
and they called up all the radio stations and said,
we want to hear the whole thing
when you play the top 40.
So now they all had to make decisions,
do we play this one guy's song?
We've got to give him 8.5 minutes?
But they did it, played it off the album.
- * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- There was a radio station, I remember,
in New York that played it over and over,
end to end with nothing else for eight hours in a row.
- * This'll be the day that I die *
- It was just unheard of.
- * This'll be the day that I die *
So I'm thinking,
this is amazing, and I'm loving it.
There's never been a phenomenon
like "American Pie."
I was smiled on.
I was as surprised as anybody
that I could make magic.
[dreamy music]
* *
- The more I listened to it,
I thought, wow, this is like an epic.
"American Pie" was really encapsulating
the experience of a whole generation.
We were witness to the death
of the American dream.
We went through both Kennedys being shot,
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King,
Vietnam, you know, hippies thought we were gonna
take over the world with love and peace...
And it didn't happen.
For me, "American Pie" is the eulogy
for a dream that didn't take place.
It was real important that way.
I think we all needed it.
It was an acknowledgement of what we had been through,
and in a way, because it was an acknowledgement,
we could move on.
[stirring music]
* *
- Here we go, Don McLean. Take two, mark.
- I feel like I want to talk about the actual
writing of the song.
- Okay.
I'm trying to do a kaleidoscopic,
dream-like, impressionistic,
yet understandable thing.
The first verse of the song is biographical.
* Long, long time ago *
* I can still remember how that music *
* Used to make me smile *
Buddy was like a lost brother
or somebody that died in the war or--
there was this yearning I had in me always,
and I could never talk to anybody about it,
because it was just all in me.
* The day the music died *
So let's see now, the second verse--
how's it go?
Do you remember? [laughs]
* Now do you believe in rock 'n' roll? *
* Can music save your mortal soul? *
"Can music save your mortal soul?"
See, that's the theology in me coming out.
In the church, they only talk about your immortal soul.
I'm saying, can music save your mortal soul,
as a man, now, being alive?
* Well, I know that you're in *
"Well, I know that you're in love with him
"'cause I saw you dancing in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes."
* You both kicked off your shoes *
"Man, I dig those rhythm and blues."
So this is all me, little old me,
seeing other kids being happy
and hearing the music going on behind them,
and seeing other things happen that I wasn't a part of.
"Yeah, I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck."
Now, that's a take off on having bronchial asthma.
I was "bronching," but I was still a stallion,
you know what I mean?
* I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck *
"With a pink carnation..."
* And a pickup truck, but I knew I *
Sure, I went to a lot of proms,
but I never had a pickup truck,
but I could have anything I wanted in my songs.
Since my father died, I have no family.
You know, I have my mother, but my mother
and I went sort of different ways.
* Oh, for ten years we've been on our own *
That's me talking, "For ten years I've been
"on my own.
Moss grows fat on a rolling stone."
I think I was putting on weight.
I thought I was, you know, getting fat
and lazy and stuff.
* When the jester sang for the king and queen *
"When the jester sang for the king and queen."
Now, there's been this discussion
about the jester over and over.
You know, I certainly would have mentioned Dylan's name
if I had meant to mention him.
I would have said Bob or something else,
but I didn't, 'cause it ain't him.
The king, I say, "The jester stole his thorny crown."
I didn't mention Elvis Presley,
because Elvis did not have a thorny crown.
Jesus Christ has a thorny crown.
If I'd wanted to say Elvis instead of the King,
I would have said Elvis.
I say James Dean in the song.
So what you have is this mythology that I'm inventing
of this insulting, happy jester.
Oh, I'll just grab the king's crown off his head
and see if he laughs at that,
see if that's funny.
* And while Lennon read a book on Marx *
"And Lennon read a book on Marx."
Well, that applies to both John Lennon and the real Lenin.
[chuckles]
Communism radicalized John Lennon,
and Lenin was radicalized by Marx.
So now the next verse is...
* Helter-skelter in the summer swelter *
"Eight miles high" definitely came from the name of a song.
* Eight miles high and falling fast *
I thought that was a great song.
The "eight miles high" idea, I loved that.
Now, there was a song that Josh White used to sing
called "Bottle Up and Go."
* There I am in the grass *
* Mm-mmm a forward pass *
* You got to bottle up and go *
So that was the idea of a forward pass in the grass.
* The grass, the players tried for a forward pass *
"With a jester on the sidelines."
That meant, this wasn't funny anymore.
This wasn't funny at all.
* The halftime air was sweet perfume *
* While the sergeants played a marching tune *
And then the rest of the lyric is about the people trying
to take over, and they would be pushed back
by the marching band, the military-industrial complex.
* The marching band refused to yield *
I was always marching against the war in Vietnam.
We were constantly being pushed aside
in this relentless desire to destroy Southeast Asia.
* There we were all in one place *
"The generation lost in space."
We're out in the middle of an endless universe.
None of us are important except to each other,
and we're all lost in space,
because the war was hotter than it ever was before.
* I met a girl who sang the blues *
* And I asked her for some happy news *
"I met a girl who sang the blues,
I asked her for some happy news."
Well, you see, I'd gotten the bad news
in the front of the song.
Now I'm asking her for some happy news
at the end of the song.
* But she just smiled and turned away *
And you know how it is when a woman
or anybody smile and turn away like that?
She knew something, but she wasn't gonna say anything.
She doesn't give me good news.
* And I went down to the sacred store *
* Where I'd heard the music years before *
"Went down to the sacred store."
Now I'm going back to New Rochelle.
They said, "The music doesn't play anymore, Don."
The country was headed in the wrong direction,
toward an evil god of some sort,
and that's how the song ends.
* And the three men I admire most *
* The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost *
"The three men I admire most,
caught the last train for the coast,"
so even God has been corrupted.
He's going to Los Angeles. [laughs]
[bombastic music]
* *
- "A long, long time ago lived a lonely newspaper boy."
I'm Peter Gallagher.
I'm an actor and singer.
I'm here to read an audiobook
all inspired by Don McLean's
epic, "American Pie."
"He never missed a porch or a sidewalk
with his finely crafted fling."
What this song and this story provides
all of us is the chance for us to recognize
what we share in terms of the past.
"His bike transformed into a stealthy steed."
It's just a whole world in there,
and you can hear and see in it
what you need to hear and see in any given moment.
"The newspaper boy gently picked up the guitar
and slung it over his shoulder."
I was eager to contribute to something
that might make people feel connected again.
"Something had touched him deep inside."
- * We started singin' *
* My, my, this here Anakin guy *
* May be Vader someday later,
* Now he's just a small fry *
Well, in 1999 when "Star Wars" was coming out
with the "Phantom Menace," so I knew I wanted
to write a song parody about "Star Wars."
And I flashed on the idea of using "American Pie,"
because it's one of my all-time favorite songs.
* We finally got to Coruscant *
I think "American Pie" is eternal.
There's some magic baked into that song.
* How good the boy could be *
* *
When "The Saga Begins" came out,
it was a huge hit on Radio Disney,
so a lot of pre-teens were listening to the song.
They didn't know "American Pie,"
they just thought, oh, it's a funny Weird Al
song about "Star Wars."
The following year, Madonna did a cover version
of "American Pie," like, kind of a disco version,
and all these kids were thinking,
how come Madonna is doing an unfunny version
of a Weird Al song? [laughs]
- [singing in Spanish]
* *
- I remember when you called me.
"Hey, doing the remake
"of 'American Pie,'
our version, putting Spanish in it."
I was like, man, are you kidding me?
What an honor, no-brainer.
- I mean, it's such a classic. - It's just so powerful.
[singing in Spanish]
- Jencarlos, he really understood
how to, someway, say the same story
of the original song, but in Spanish.
I knew about the song since I was like 12.
My dad had it.
It's such an impactful song.
- [singing in Spanish]
* Again, bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- You know how many times growing up that song played?
- I've been singing this song as a fan for so many years.
* Them good old boys *
I see it as us, from our culture,
tipping our hats off to the original.
* The day that I die *
Still, to date, that song has transcended.
It's still so inspiring.
What a masterpiece.
- * And there we were all in one place *
* A generation lost in space *
When I first heard "American Pie," I said,
hey, what is this new record I'm listening to?
You know, and I listened and listened,
and I was so blown away because he takes you on a journey.
It's like, each verse is different,
he goes through different phases.
I love the melody,
and of course, Don's lyrics are really great.
* You both kicked off your shoes *
"We both kicked off our shoes,
and I dig those rhythm and blues."
* As the flames climbed high into the night *
Don, well, he's up there with the best of them.
He's just a very, very talented songwriter,
and he deserves his success.
Thank you.
[cheering]
all: * We were singin' "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" *
- I was doing a TV show
called "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist,"
and after my character dies,
the entire cast sing "American Pie."
all: * Singing, this'll be the day that I die *
- It was amazing to see just
how powerful that song is, still.
It really is timeless.
- * I met a girl who sang the blues *
- "Zoey's" was a show that I was
executive music producer for and produced a lot of songs,
none better or bigger than "American Pie"
for the finale of the season.
- * I went down to the sacred store *
* Where I'd heard the music *
- As a songwriter, it's the kind of song
you dream about writing, that has meaning
and has depth, has relevance,
and is something that continues to be relevant
to generations, you know, ongoing.
- * In the streets, the children screamed *
* The lovers cried and the poets dreamed *
"American Pie" has always been a part of my life.
You know, when my dad drove me to preschool,
we were listening to it.
My dad wanted me to know the history of that song,
because it's important.
It's heavy. It's meaningful.
* And the three men I admire the most *
There's a world that's created with this song
that is our world, but also isn't.
It's more tragic and it's more beautiful.
* The day *
* The music died *
[stirring music]
* *
- Don, my name's Jeff Nicholas. I'm president of the Surf,
I want to welcome you to the Surf Ballroom.
- Pleasure to be here. - I'd like to
show you the ballroom a little bit.
- Definitely. - Yeah.
So the ballroom was designed to simulate walking out
on the beach and dancing under the deep blue sky.
We kind of consider it
the soundstage of American music.
- Well, it's certainly an important place.
- * American boy * - * American boy *
- * Invented rock 'n' roll * - * Rock 'n' roll *
- All that stuff from the late '40s
right on through to the mid '60s,
that music is the essence of everything.
- * They caused a sensation *
- So here we are, walking on the stage of American music.
- * Shook up the nation * - * American boy *
- The original stage ended right here.
- So you mean Buddy would be standing here?
- Buddy would have stood here, Waylon would have stood here,
and Tommy also would have been here,
and you know, Carl Bunch, the drummer,
was still in the hospital in Green Bay
with frostbitten fingers and toes.
They mixed and matched. Buddy would play drums,
and Ritchie would play drums, and everybody,
they just figured out a way to make the show.
- And I've been thinking about Buddy Holly a lot.
When I came up with that original part of the song,
it came out in a sad, poignant way.
- When "American Pie" came on, that was the time I believed
that the focus started to be back on those guys.
- Well, I remember the song was number one,
and they started playing Buddy's music
on the radio again.
Buddy brought me to life, I brought Buddy to life.
[laughs]
- Oh, my goodness.
- How do you do? - How do you do?
What a pleasure and an honor, Mr. McLean.
Thank you. Thank you.
I have a little something I want to say.
I just want to thank you
for writing "The Day the Music Died."
You immortalized my brother, JP, and Buddy.
You took a terrible tragedy and made rock 'n' roll history.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
See that up there?
- I hardly don't know what to say.
- A friend of ours painted that,
and all around that is our family.
Everybody signed it.
- Your brother is very important,
more important now than ever.
- Ritchie was a rock 'n' roll pioneer.
- He was.
- The first time I heard your song,
I had to keep listening to it,
because I thought, "Oh, my gosh.
"He's singing about my brother.
He's singing about the-- you know, the day the music died."
- If the song helps people love that music the way I do
and the way I did, then that's something I did
in my life that I'm very proud of.
We should never forget this music.
- Never. - And these guys were
incredibly important.
This was brand-new at the time.
- Yes.
- Ritchie was only 17. - He was only 17.
- So he started working as a musician,
making some money, and then he bought his Fender guitar.
- That's--yeah, that's right.
- So that's when he developed
that great sound on that guitar.
- Yes. - You know, it's that sort of
edgy, heavy sound, you know--
[imitates guitar]
You know, it's got that thing to it,
very distinctive.
- * Para bailar La Bamba *
- You know, he sang that traditional "La Bamba,"
which he probably sang with your family.
- Well, he made it rock 'n' roll though.
- Yeah. What's it about?
- "Para bailar La Bamba," to dance the Bamba,
"Se necesito una poca de gracia,"
we need a little grace.
"Poquito para ti, poquito para mi,"
a little for you, a little for me.
* Una poca de gracia, para mi, para ti *
* Y arriba, y arriba *
Higher and higher. - Great.
- Yeah. - So it's simple lyrics,
but just so great. - It is, yeah.
- Well, thank you for coming here.
This is a big deal for me.
- Thank you so much.
God bless you.
- You take care now. - I will.
both: Thank you.
[dreamy music]
- My name is Nelson Crabb,
and I happen to be the mayor of Clear Lake, Iowa.
February 3rd of 1959,
I was a freshman at Rutgers University.
Going back one Sunday, when on the car radio,
I heard about this terrible accident
just north of town here.
The car got quiet,
and, you know, very, very sad time,
but tonight is when we celebrate the music
of those three gentlemen, and tonight is especially neat
because we have Don McLean's "American Pie" here,
and that's very, very neat for our community.
- Hey, everybody.
Welcome to Clear Lake, Iowa and the legendary Surf Ballroom
for the 2022 Winter Dance Party.
Please welcome America's legendary singer-songwriter,
the American troubadour, Don McLean!
[cheers and applause]
- Well, all right!
So here we are,
50 years since that song came out,
50 years.
It's incredible.
You take a time like this to call that
"the day the music died" from my song.
I am so touched, really, to be here and to sing for you.
[cheers and applause]
* Did you write the book of love? *
* Do you have faith in God above? *
* If the Bible tells you so? *
* Now, do you believe in rock n' roll? *
* Can music save your mortal soul? *
* Can you teach me how to dance real slow? *
* Well, I know that you're in love with him *
* 'Cause I saw you dancing in the gym *
* You both kicked off your shoes *
* I dig those rhythm and blues *
* I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck *
* With a pink carnation and a pickup truck *
* But I knew I was out of luck *
* The day the music died *
Come on, sing it!
* Started singing, "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
* But the levee was dry *
* Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
* Singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
* This will be the day that I die *
* Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
- I think the song "American Pie" is just one
of those heartfelt American classics that just
makes you pause and be grateful
for everything that you have.
- "American Pie," one of my favorite songs.
This night in 1959, the day that music died,
but we believe the music's still alive.
[orchestral cover of "American Pie"]
* *
- It's a classic song.
It spans the generations, everyone loves it,
and it just will live on forever.
all: * Bye-bye, Miss American Pie *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee *
* But the levee was dry *
* Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
* Singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
* This will be the day that I die *
- * Helter skelter in the summer swelter *
* The birds flew off with a fallout shelter *
* Eight miles high and falling fast *
* It landed foul on the grass *
* the players tried for a forward pass *
* With the jester on the sidelines in a cast *
- * Now the halftime air was sweet perfume *
* While the sergeants played a marching tune *
* We all got up to dance *
* Oh, but we never got the chance *
* 'Cause the players tried to take the field *
* The marching band refused to yield *
* Do you recall what was revealed *
* The day the music died? *
- * We started singing, "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
* Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
* Singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
* This'll be the day that I die *
- * Oh, and there we were all in one place *
* A generation lost in space *
* With no time left to start again *
* So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick *
* Jack Flash sat on a candlestick *
* 'Cause fire is the devil's only friend *
- * Oh, and as I watched him on the stage *
* My hands were clenched in fists of rage *
* No angel born in hell *
* Could break that Satan's spell *
* As the flames climbed high into the night *
* To light the sacrificial rite *
* I saw Satan laughing with delight *
* The day the music died *
* He was singing, "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" *
* Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry *
* Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye *
* Singing, "This'll be the day that I die" *
* This'll be the day that I die *