I know I’m posting probably old news, but I was digging through the Archives and ran across the “What is ‘American Pie’ all about?” column and the meaning of the song occured to me…
Its a history of Rock and Roll…More importantly its about the loss of innocence in Rock and Roll from the days of Buddy Holly to the time the song was written…And, paralleling that, the lose of innocence in our culture…
This is pretty easy to track, just follow the imagery and tone…they start simple, much as the songs of the 50’s were, and get increasingly dark and editorial, mirroring the music of the Vietnam era…
Further, McLean doesn’t seem happy about this change…The music that used to make him smile in his youth is eventually the cause of a riot at a Rolling Stones concert…His last verse is mourning for the music, and innocence, of his youth…
Not that this is only meaning that can be drawn, but I think its the one that was originally intended…
Cutter has the right general idea but if you are interested in more details, check out this siteThe Meaning of American Pie, It will open in a new window. It has a meaning for every line in the song and details about Altamont (Verse 5).
I just heard a radiofeature on American Pie the other day.
They claim, Don Mc Lean answered to the question what his song means:
“It means I never have to work again”, hinting at the fact, that he never gave up his commercial rights on the song.
Yes, that page has been taken down, but the analysis (or one just like it) still remains here. The original page consisted of the lyrical analysis, plus a shameless plug for the pyramid scheme that was AllAdvantage.com. Maybe when AllAdvantage went down the tubes, the page author wanted to distance himself from its stigma, and moved his content to another server, hence the different URL.