I’ve been listening to Don McLean sing “American Pie” for 20 years now and I still don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I know, I know, the “day the music died” is a reference to the Buddy Holly/Ritchie Valens/Big Bopper plane crash, but the rest of the song seems to be chock-full of musical symbolism that I’ve never been able to decipher. There are clear references to the Byrds (“eight miles high and fallin’ fast”) and the Rolling Stones (“Jack Flash sat on a candlestick”), but the song also mentions the “King and Queen,” the “Jester” (I’ve heard this is either Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan), a “girl who sang the blues” (Janis Joplin?), and the Devil himself. I’ve heard there is an answer key that explains all the symbols. Is there? Even if there isn’t, can you give me a line on who’s who and what’s what in this mediocre but firmly-entrenched-in-my-mind piece of music? –Scott McGough, Baltimore
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“February made me shiver”: Holly’s plane crashed February 3, 1959. “Them good ole boys were . . . singing ‘This’ll be the day that I die’”: Holly’s hit “That’ll Be the Day” had a similar line. “The Jester sang for the King and Queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean”: ID of K and Q obscure. Elvis and Connie Francis (or Little Richard)? John and Jackie Kennedy? Or Queen Elizabeth and consort, for whom Dylan apparently did play once? Dean’s coat is the famous red windbreaker he wore in Rebel Without a Cause; Dylan wore a similar one on The Freewheeling Bob Dylan album cover. “With the Jester on the sidelines in a cast”: On July 29, 1966, Dylan had a motorcycle accident that kept him laid up for nine months. “While sergeants played a marching tune”: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “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 / And as the flames climbed high into the night”: Mick Jagger, Altamont. “I met a girl who sang the blues / And I asked her for some happy news / But she just smiled and turned away”: Janis Joplin OD’d October 4, 1970. “The three men I admire most / The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost / They caught the last train for the coast”: Major mystery. Holly, Bopper, Valens? Hank Williams, Elvis, Holly? JFK, RFK, ML King? The literal tripartite deity? As for the coast, could be the departure of the music biz for California. Or it simply rhymes, a big determinant of plot direction in pop music lyrics (which may also explain “drove my Chevy to the levee”). Best I can do for now. Just don’t ask me to explain “Stairway to Heaven.”
