The Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee reflects on his life, his music, and America.
“American Pie,” an eight-and-a-half-minute epic rated one of the top five songs of the twentieth century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts, is famously enigmatic. But Don McLean, the artist behind the song, has just announced plans for a feature documentary, “The Day The Music Died: The Story Behind Don McLean’s American Pie,” which is sure to shed some light on the matter. Set for release at the end of 2021, the documentary will also inspire a musical to come in 2022, and a children’s book.
The timing makes sense: next year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of “American Pie,” a song which climbed to the top of the chartsin several countries and stayed there for weeks, and which has made McLean millions since.
There are some generally-agreed-upon references in the song’s cryptic six verses, and McLean sold his annotated manuscript of the song for $1.2 million in 2015, revealing a few more. But part of the enduring magic of the song, according to the documentary’s producer, Spencer Proffer, is that “everyone across the globe has made their own interpretation of what the words mean to them.” And McLean isn’t about to change that. “But I am going to get behind the song, and I’m sure that I’ll reveal a whole lot about just how it was created, and what was going on in my life,” he said.
“‘American Pie’ is a fable in a sense about a country that is enormous and almost ungovernable,” McLean told me. Verse by verse, the song chronicles the innocence of the 1950s give way to the revolutionary sentiment of the ‘60s, and the disillusionment of the ‘70s. The documentary and the musical will go beyond “American Pie” to delve into McLean’s deep catalog of hits, including “Vincent,” “Wonderful Baby,” and others, whose different styles and messages seek to “reflect the quilt or the patchwork that is the United States.”
“I want this to be an uplifting and powerful story about the good part and great part of America,” said McLean, who struggled for many years before making it big.
