Line #12 Music/AmericanPie


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/03766ca1ea72b740d1c2336dbf490b25.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[DeadArtistsAreBetter They would not listen, they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen now.]]'']]
3
4	->''A long, long time ago\
5	I can still remember how\
6	That music used to make me smile\
7	And I knew if I had my chance\
8	That I could make those people dance\
9	And maybe they'd be happy for a while''
10	-->-- "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_TFkut1PM American Pie]]", opening lyrics
11
12	''American Pie'' is a 1971 album by Music/DonMcLean. It was [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel his second, more successful album]] after his more moderately received debut album, ''Tapestry'' (1970). It's best remembered for "American Pie", a CelebrityElegy written about the young death of rock 'n' roll stars Music/BuddyHolly, Music/RitchieValens and Music/TheBigBopper. Although the singer has long admitted it's mostly about the death of these three musicians, other parts of the lyrics remained ShroudedInMyth for years, as [=McLean=] himself always refused to comment on its deeper meaning... until 2015 (see "The Walrus Was Paul" below). "American Pie" has become the singer's SignatureSong, though the long song was [[SecondVerseCurse originally released on a dual-sided single and radio stations back then only played the first part]]. "Vincent" also had some success, [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff albeit more in the United Kingdom]] where it even became a number 1 hit song ("American Pie" had stalled at number 2 there).
13
14	"American Pie" has become a ToughActToFollow for [=McLean=], since he never had such a commercial success again, except for one more top 5 single in 1980, "Crying". However, not many remember it.
15
16	Has nothing to do with [[Film/AmericanPie the movie where a guy has sex with a pie]].
17	----
18	!!Tracklist:
19
20	[[AC:One Side]]
21	# "American Pie" (8:33)
22	# "Till Tomorrow" (2:11)
23	# "Vincent" (3:55)
24	# "Crossroads" (3:34)
25
26	[[AC:Another Side]]
27	[numlist:5]
28	# "Winterwood" (3:09)
29	# "Empty Chairs" (3:24)
30	# "Everybody Loves Me, Baby" (3:37)
31	# "Sister Fatima" (2:31)
32	# "The Grave" (3:08)
33	# "Babylon" (1:40)
34	[/numlist]
35
36	!!''And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey n' rye, singin' "this will be the day that I trope"''
37	* AgeProgressionSong: "American Pie" starts "a long long time ago" with the singer as a young boy with a paper route, continues on to the "teenage bronkin' buck" phase, and looks back on the past in the final verse.
38	* AlliterativeTitle: "'''T'''ill '''T'''omorrow".
39	* AmericanTitle: "American Pie".
40	* AsTheGoodBookSays: "Babylon" is based on the 137th Psalm from the Bible. "American Pie" also refers to the Bible:
41	-->''Did you write the book of love''\
42	''And do you have faith in God above''\
43	''If the Bible tells you so?''
44	* BreakUpSong: "Empty Chairs" is an especially melancholy example.
45	-->''Never thought you'd leave, until you went''
46	* CelebrityElegy: "American Pie", lamenting the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. "Vincent" mourns the tragic life of Creator/VincentVanGogh, while "The Grave" mourns for the unnamed soldier and his comrades.
47	* ConceptAlbum: "American Pie" was inspired by ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' by The Beatles and intended as a similar unified work.
48	* CynicismCatalyst: Amidst all the WordSaladLyrics, the title song repeatedly references "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died the day the music died]]" -- the day of the plane crash that killed rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.
49	* DeadArtistsAreBetter: "Vincent" is about Creator/VincentVanGogh's troubled life and how no one appreciated him until after he died.
50	* EpicRocking: The 8:33 "American Pie".
51	* FaceOnTheCover: The singer is featured on the album cover, but his hand is seen in a more extreme close-up than his face, which is shown in the background.
52	* {{Homage}}: [=McLean=] dedicated "American Pie" to Music/BuddyHolly. "Vincent" is a tribute to Creator/VincentVanGogh.
53	* IAmGreatSong: The narrator in "Everybody Loves Me, Baby" claims that he's got everything in the world, except the person who he's singing the song to.
54	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The two sides of the album are labeled "One Side" and "Another Side."
55	* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: "Vincent" sings how Van Gogh was a creative genius ahead of his time, but that this made him a recluse too, misunderstood by others.
56	* LastChorusSlowDown: The final verse of "American Pie" slows down to its original tempo heard at the beginning of the song from the faster verses between them.
57	* LongestSongGoesFirst: The album opens with the eight-and-a-half-minute TitleTrack, the only song on the record to reach EpicRocking status.
58	* LyricalColdOpen: "American Pie" starts off slow and melancholic before it truly enters its faster first verse.
59	* MadArtist: "Vincent", about Creator/VincentVanGogh's mental troubles.
60	-->''Now I understand''\
61	''what you tried to say to me''\
62	''and how you suffered for your sanity''\
63	''and how you tried to set them free''\
64	''they would not listen they did not know how''\
65	''perhaps they'll listen now.''
66	* MinisculeRocking: The 1:40 "Babylon".
67	* MoralityBallad: "American Pie" has been interpreted as a warning about the cultural breakdown of TheSixties.
68	* OneManSong: "Vincent".
69	* OneWomanSong: "Sister Fatima".
70	* OneWordTitle: "Vincent", "Crossroads", "Winterwood", "Babylon".
71	* PatrioticFervor: [=McLean=] shows his hand on the album cover and the thumb is in the color of the American flag.
72	* {{Pun}}: "American Pie" has the line "[[Music/JohnLennon Lennon]] read a book on [[Creator/KarlMarx Marx]]", which has been understood as both a pun on UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin, who was a Marxist, and Creator/GrouchoMarx, as Lennon's public persona was often seen as a musical Groucho Marx.
73	* ThePowerOfRock: "American Pie" reminisces about how RockAndRoll used to delight the masses with [=McLean=] aspiring to be a rock musician in his younger days.
74	-->''I can still remember''\
75	''How that music used to make me smile''\
76	''And I knew if I had my chance''\
77	''That I could make those people dance''\
78	''And maybe they'd be happy for a while''
79	* ProtestSong: "The Grave", against the Vietnam War.
80	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "American Pie" was inspired by the fatal plane crash in 1959 in which rock and roll musicians Music/BuddyHolly, Music/RitchieValens and Music/TheBigBopper were killed. [=McLean=] was indeed a 13-year old paper boy at the time, as he sings in the song.
81	* {{Satan}}: "American Pie" uses that name [[TakeThat to represent]] Music/MickJagger of Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}} playing on (with Satan-praising songs also being performed) even when one member of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club providing security fatally stabbed a guy amidst an increasingly violent live concert.
82	-->''I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died.''
83	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In "American Pie", near the end, the Christian Trinity itself is stated to do this, though it may be interpreted as Holly, Ritchie and Richardson getting killed in the February plane crash to {{Bookend}} the song.
84	-->''And the three Men I admire most,''\
85	''The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost;''\
86	''They caught the last train for the coast''\
87	''The day the music died.''
88	* SelfPlagiarism: "Vincent" and "Empty Chairs" sound an awful lot like each other, especially the choruses. [=McLean=] has since revealed that they were indeed written as companion pieces, linked by Creator/VincentVanGogh's painting ''Empty Chair''.
89	* ShoutOut: That "American Pie" alludes to the plane crash which killed off Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper is well known. But there are also shout-outs (many in the form of TakeThat) to:
90	** Music/MartyRobbins' 1957 song "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)"
91	--->''I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck''\
92	''With a pink carnation and a pickup truck''
93	** Music/BobDylan and Creator/JamesDean
94	--->''When the jester sang for the [[Music/ElvisPresley king]] and queen / in a coat he borrowed from Creator/JamesDean''
95	** Music/JohnLennon and Creator/KarlMarx
96	---> ''And while Lennon read a book on Marx''
97	** Music/TheBeatles, who played their final concert in Candlestick Park, a baseball park in San Francisco, released ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' and had a song called "Helter Skelter" on ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''
98	--->''The quartet practiced in the park''\
99	''Helter skelter in a summer swelter''\
100	''(...) while the sergeants played a marching tune''
101	** "Eight Miles High" by Music/TheByrds
102	--->''The birds flew off with the fallout shelter''\
103	''Eight miles high and falling fast''
104	** Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}}' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and their concert at Candlestick Park.
105	--->''So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Flash sat on a candlestick''
106	** "American Pie" has been covered by Music/{{Madonna}} but [[RearrangeTheSong not the entire song]], inspired the title of the 1999 SexComedy ''Film/AmericanPie'' (which has nothing to do with the song or the album whatsoever) and as the Music/WeirdAlYankovic parody "The Saga Begins" which made references to the then new ''Franchise/StarWars'' movie ''Film/ThePhantomMenace''.
107	** The lyric "The Day the Music Died" from "American Pie" has become a popular nickname for February 3, 1959, when indeed RockAndRoll lost three talented musicians: Music/BuddyHolly, Music/RitchieValens and Music/TheBigBopper. ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has an episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E18TheDayTheViolenceDied The Day The Violence Died]]" spoofing the title.[[note]]In the episode, ''The Itchy and Scratchy Show'' gets cancelled.[[/note]]
108	** "Vincent" was used during the meteor shower scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Scuse Me While I Miss The Sky". In the episode "So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show" Granpa paraphrases the line: "This world was never meant for someone as beautiful as you."
109	** "Danny Don't Rapp", about Danny Rapp the lead singer of Danny & The Juniors, from Music/DanielJohnston's ''Music/YipJumpMusic'' also paraphrases the line "This world was never meant for someone as beautiful as you".
110	* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: The deleted seventh verse in "American Pie" (never publicly revealed until the original manuscript for the song lyrics were auctioned off in 2015), which apparently alludes to the rebirth of rock music with the rise of British acts such as Music/TheBeatles and Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}}.
111	-->''And there I stood alone and afraid''\
112	''I dropped to my knees and there I prayed''\
113	''And I promised Him everything I could give''\
114	''If only he would make the music live''\
115	''And he promised it would live once more''\
116	''But this time one would equal four''\
117	''And in five years four had come to mourn''\
118	''And the music was reborn''
119	* TakeThat:
120	** "American Pie" uses a lot of religious imagery, with God lamenting the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper while at the same time, the Devil celebrates it. In other words, the song is an extended middle finger to the MoralGuardians who say that rock-and-roll is [[EveryoneIsSatanInHell demonic in origin, and corrupting the youth]][[invoked]].
121	** The penultimate lyric is a harsh attack on Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}}, and Music/MickJagger especially, for inciting the violence at the Altamont Free Concert. [=McLean=] goes so far as to compare Jagger to Satan.
122	--->''Oh as I watched him on the stage\
123	My hands were clenched in fists of rage\
124	No angel born in hell could break that Satan's spell\
125	And as the flames climbed high into the night\
126	To light the sacrificial rite\
127	I saw Satan laughing with delight\
128	The day the music died''
129	* TeenageDeathSongs: "American Pie" in a sense, because it references the death of Ritchie Valens, who was 17 when he died. "The Grave" is about a young Marine dying in the Vietnam War. Also, the line "we sang dirges in the dark" can be a reference to the spate of teen death songs in the early 1960s.
130	* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: "Vincent".
131	-->''But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for someone as beautiful as you''.
132	* WarIsHell: "The Grave" is a protest song against the Vietnam War.
133	----
134	->''They were singin'''\
135	''"Bye-Bye, Miss American Pie"''\
136	''Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry''\
137	''Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey 'n rye''\

Context Music / AmericanPie