Page "Don McLean" Paragraph 8

McLean's magnum opus, " American Pie ", is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson ( The Big Bopper ) in a plane crash on 3 February 1959.

The song popularized the expression " The Day the Music Died " in reference to this event.

WCFL DJ Bob Dearborn unraveled the lyrics and first published his interpretation on 7 January 1972, eight days before the song reached # 1 nationally ( see " Further reading " under American Pie ).

Numerous other interpretations, which together largely converged on Dearborn's interpretation, quickly followed.

McLean declined to say anything definitive about the lyrics until 1978.

Since then McLean has stated that the lyrics are also somewhat autobiographical and present an abstract story of his life from the mid-1950s until the time he wrote the song in the late 1960s.