Don McLean decodes ‘American Pie’ meaning

In 1969, Don McLean landed a spot at Newport Folk Pageant, exactly where a discussion with rock ‘n’ roll legends the Everly Brothers altered his lifestyle in means he by no means could’ve dreamed. 

“The Everlys ended up there,” he recollects. “And they had normally been my beloved group. Or a single of them.”

The aspiring singer/songwriter approached Phil Everly. “I stated, ‘I know that you realized Buddy Holly.’ And like a child – I was just a kid – I said, ‘What occurred? Can you notify me what took place?’ I wished to know more than just, ‘He acquired on the airplane.’ “

Everly shared what he had arrive to have an understanding of of the situations that occurred 10 many years earlier, when Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Major Bopper” Richardson were being killed in a airplane crash soon after playing the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, as component of the Winter season Dance Social gathering Tour.

16 new new music documentaries ready to rock your entire world: From Equipment Gun Kelly to Lil Child

Don McLean decodes ‘American Pie’ meaning

What Phil Everly explained to Don McLean about Buddy Holly and the day the music died

This is right before we commenced imagining of the day that aircraft went down – Feb. 3, 1959 – as “the day the tunes died.”

At that level, McLean hadn’t prepared those text in “American Pie,” his virtually 9-moment epic which is the topic of the new documentary “The Working day the Tunes Died” (streaming now on Paramount+).