Misc: ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s The Saga Begins is a Star Wars-themed parody of American Pie“The song was started as a big song about America. The song has also been covered by many different artists, notably by Madonna in 2000. While the song is ostensibly a reflection on the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper, scholars have debated the deeper meanings hidden within its lyric – a subject on which McLean himself has traditionally remained tight-lipped – for decades. He’s maintained a successful career in music ever since, but it’s without doubt American Pie for which he’s best known. McLean wouldn’t have to wait too long to become a UK chart-topper, though – follow-up single Vincent, also from the American Pie album, saw him clenching the top spot a mere five months later, a trick he would repeat in 1980 with Crying. All the same, in 1971 it made an unlikely pop star of a then 26-year-old folk and rock ‘n’ roll artist from New York state called Don McLean, topping the charts in the US and all over Europe, though it went only to No 2 here in the UK.
Weighing in at over eight-and-a-half minutes long and sporting no fewer than six densely worded, imagery-laden verses, American Pie is by no means your average pop song. The singer-songwriter aimed to craft “a big song” about “a modern America” and ended up delivering an eight-and-a-half-minute folk-rock phenomenon
