![]() The best of Robert Frost, the best of Shakespeare, are all embodied in the ways that Don McLean wrote his poem called American Pie. It's timeless to me because the melody and the music timeless, and the lyrics are just an epic tale. Why do you think this song still resonates with you today? The making of this film is clearly such a passion project for you. This is a movie about the song past, present and future. There's a separate Buddy Holly movie being made, funny enough, by a dear friend of mine who produced the Ray Charles movie. So this is more than just about Buddy Holly. McLean, right, meets Connie Valens, sister of singer Ritchie Valens, backstage at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. We have Jade Bird, who's a fantastic new Americana artist from England who has done a new version that's been released as a single to cross-promote, bring attention to the film for the younger generation, because as a young girl growing up in England, the song touched her as well. That's why we have a Spanish language cover of it. it jarred him emotionally and it gave him an inspiration to kind of chronicle not only what feelings he had as a result, but the song isn't about them. ![]() What did Don McLean tell you about what those deaths, what that moment, meant to him? Young musicians in their prime on this big tour. (The Big Bopper) Richardson - all in 1959. You've been speaking about how the song was inspired by the tragic death of Buddy Holly - also Ritchie Valens J.P. What Don did in his own brilliance is he decided this would be the time to reveal what he really meant, and my job was to give him the platform to do it. That was the beginning of the next chapter and Don wanted to keep it going indefinitely. But, you know, when music dies, we all we die with it because music is a tapestry that is woven all of our lives.īut, yeah, the trigger point was when Buddy Holly lost his life, when he was such a seminal figure in regional music in America. Buddy was just the propeller for the thought. You're making me think of the lyrics, "This will be the day that I die." That's a direct tribute, then, to Buddy Holly, isn't it? ![]() The deaths of the three men partially inspired American Pie. This is where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper performed on Feb. McLean performs American Pie for its 50th anniversary at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The rebirth became what he alluded to in the song, that we can all be reborn, we could all have dreams, hopes and aspirations for a better world, and I think that song speaks to all of that. And he felt alone because that was the day the music died, in a sense, to him. And when he, unfortunately, passed away in a plane crash, it really touched Don. When you speak of death and you speak of the resurrection of discovery, of what that means, Buddy Holly actually was a poet. Just years earlier, in '68, Kennedy was assassinated. What I believe was happening, because I was there, was a lot of protests, a lot of marching against the war. What was happening in America and how did the song. We just heard a clip from the documentary where Ed Freeman, who produced the original song, called it a eulogy for a dream that did not take place.
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