Background: The Altamont Free Concert
On December 6th, 1969, on the Speedway in Tracy, California, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival kicked off. That Saturday, some 300,000 counter-culture rock enthusiasts attended the haphazard venue, thinking that they were in for a Woodstock West. The real concert, organised primarily by the Grateful Dead and moved to the Speedway only two days prior, was a far more rowdy affair. The organisers had the Hell’s Angels, armed with chains and weighted pool-cues, play security on a handshake deal. The Angels were paid in beer, left on the stage, and surrounded the three-feet-high stage to protect the performers, some list that included Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Grateful Dead, and the final act, the Rolling Stones.
Due to the fact that the concert was essentially a bowl containing 300,000 psychedelically-influenced rockers, things became unruly fast. The Hell’s Angels were constantly engaged, and at one point injured the skull of a 6-month pregnant lady with a flying beer bottle.
Eventually, Mick Jagger and the Stones come out to play. The band had been ferried to the concert by helicopter to avoid the unruliness, only for Jagger, donning a red cape with all-too-satanic connotations, especially during his ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, to be punched in the face upon exit. Jagger threatens to leave, but the riots immediately pick back up as he begins to play ‘Sympathy’.
One man, who had previously been in an altercation with the Angels, pulled a gun out and began to wave it around the crowd. Immediately, one of the Angels dived and stabbed the guy in the neck, simultaneously gaining control of the gun arm and directing it away from the crowd. He immobilised the man and drags him to the ground, and all the Angels push the boundaries of legal self-defence by jumping on him.
All the while, Jagger and the Stones continue to play. The fight happened right in front of them. They continue to deny that they understood the severity of the exchange, but still it’s not a great optic. Nero playing the flute as Rome burns.
Don McLean’s American Masterpiece
Sometime in 1971 Don McLean watched Gimme Shelter. The documentary from the Maysles Bros. studio house chronicles the events of the Altamont Concert, and these happenings struck a chord in McLean, who has been long reticent to reveal any of the meaning behind his ‘monumental accomplishment of lyric writing’ (Record World). The events of the Altamont Free Concert formed the basis of much of the latter part of the song, but the initial events - and writing - were stimulated by something far more personal.
The death of Buddy Holly (whom he dedicated the eponymous album to), Richie Valens and The Big Bopper in that February 1959 plane crash marked McLean, marked him because of his growing sentiment that the 50s era of virtuous music was fading into the 60s and 70s and their drug-infused, rebellious contraband. The loss of music, the day the music died, and of American public decency culminated, for Don, with that February plane crash, and the loss of his hero.
The song begins:
A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I delivered
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
The first verse introduces us to this shift in music that Don is lamenting. The music ‘used to make me smile’, but now it is lost. But, ‘February made me shiver’, due to the aforementioned deaths of his musical idols, and now McLean fears that the music joyousness of the 50s is lost. McLean himself noted that;
I first found out about the plane crash because I was a 13-year-old newspaper delivery boy in New Rochelle, New York, and I was carrying the bundle of the local Standard-Star papers that were bound in twine, and when I cut it open with a knife, there it was on the front page.
The rest of that verse is pretty self explanatory. He’s sad about Buddy’s death, he fears that it marks the end for what he sees as ‘real’ music, and so forth. Onto the chorus:
So bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey in Rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die
‘Miss American Pie’ is simply a stand in for the good old days, as he sees it, of musical virtue and public decency. The one’s he is wistfully, sadly waving goodbye to. The use of a ‘pie’ nods to the apple pie, by this time an American cultural symbol. In fact, the line was originally going to be, ‘So bye, bye Miss American Apple Pie’, but McLean changed it (and thank god he did).
The next line is contentious, as many are. Much of the lyrics to American Pie have been subject of scholarly debate, and more often than not scholars are found wanting. McLean himself for a long time refused to give any breath to the meaning of the lyrics, joking that ‘they mean I never have to work again if I don’t want to’, and believing that the job of the artist was to release their creation into the world and maintain a dignified silence. He broke his oath in 2015, when the original manuscript was auctioned off, allowing his initial songwriting notes to be included, which gave some insight into his creative process and lyrical decisions.
It’s generally thought that the next line refers to a popular commercial jingle from Chevrolet, which rhymed ‘levee’ with ‘Chevy’ and featured images of traditional 50’s life. McLean has lost that life, the levee is dry, and he is disappointed by this fact, by the rumbling onwards of society in what he sees as the wrong direction. However, some point to a more literal meaning, being that McLean frequented a bar called the Levee and often arrived too late, meaning that the bar was closed and ‘dry’.
This lends narrative credence to the next line, there the good ole boys drinking whisky and rye are his friends, and not the outcast stars of 50s rock and roll sipping beer and reminiscing about their long-lost time in the starlight. It doesn’t particularly explain why they’re singing about their own extinction, though. The second interpretation seems much more the point that McLean is arguing here.
Nevertheless, the chorus continues to bring around that general sentiment of times changing and virtue lost. McLean brings us round and round again to that cultural shift, something vague but huge, exactly the kind of thing he said that he set out to write.
The next verse begins:
Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so?
Now do you believe in rock and roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well, I know that you’re in love with him
Cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues
I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died
I started singin’
Here come the 50s references. The book of love was a hit song from The Monotones in 1957, and McLean uses it in conjunction with Bible talk to point out the shift from the pious 50s to the hedonistic, disgraceful 60s. This is backed up by the immediate comparison to rock n roll, a la John Lennon’s ‘We’re more popular than Jesus’ sentiment. A scary one for McLean.
The 50s references continue with his reference to teenage ‘sock-hops’, which were very popular in the 50s but pretty much went away by 1970. Gymnasium dances so-named because attendees would have to remove their shoes before entering, to protect the linoleum of the gym floor, McLean invokes sock-hops as another example of how society has changed - for the worse - since his beloved 50s.
And that’s how the rest of the verse goes; his pickup truck and pink flowers, his love for emergent R&B - all fond memories of the 50s, lovely 50s in stark contrast to the malignant 60s, for Don.
The next verse brings us out first mention of the Stones and Altamont.
Now, for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rolling stone
But, that’s not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
We were singin’
There’s a lot in this one, so we’ll go line by line. Ten years later, and we’re in 1969, the year of the Altamont Free Concert. McLean’s distaste for Jagger and the Stones is evident, as ‘rolling stones’, as in literal tumbling stones, would gather no moss, but this one, the Rolling Stone himself, is stagnant, and still, and greedily gathering moss; it’s dirtying.
The ‘Jester’ singing for the ‘King and Queen’ is a contentious frame. It’s typically understood that the Jester is Bob Dylan, singing for Elvis, the recognised ‘King’. Dylan’s famous image in a coat similar to that of 50s Hollywood star James Dean, and the reference to his very distinctive voice only furthers this interpretation. (Dylan wasn’t very happy about this, by the way. He said: A jester? Sure, the jester writes songs like ‘Masters of War,’ ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,’ ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ – some jester. I have to think he’s talking about somebody else. Ask him.)
As Elvis was looking down - dying - the Jester, Dylan, stole his crown as the preeminent figure in rock and roll. But whether or not he’s a worthy replacement has yet to be decided by the public - the courtroom is adjourned.
Now the Beatles come in. Self-proclaimed hippie John Lennon is phonetically allied with Russian politician Vladimir for their Marxist interest, and the quartet - the Beatles - played their last concert in Candlestick Park. And the old 50s outcasts sang in the dark, forgotten.
The next verse winds around the Altamont issue to address some other socio-politics of the late 60s;
Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singin’
Helter Skelter was written on the walls of the Polanski mansion following the Sharon Tate murders by Charles Manson and his crew, a landmark political and cultural event. The birds flew off a shelter, presumably rattled by the shockwaves of such an event, but McLean also references ‘The Byrds’ who’s hit song ‘Eight miles high’ fell through off charts rapidly due to its pro-drug tones. It landed, disregarded, on the ground, or the ‘grass’ that the band, alongside pretty much everybody was famous for smoking.
The players trying for a forward pass refers to the Kent State Massacre of May 1970, where players in a football game, alongside Vietnam protesters, were tear-gassed and brutalised by riot police in a massive overdetermination of appropriate retaliatory force. The jester on the sidelines is Dylan, watching on, surveying his new musical kingdom. Or, again in a more literal reading, it may be due to his recovering from a surgery at the time that left him literally, in a cast. But let’s not ruin what McLean has going here.
The sweet perfume of the halftime air is the aforementioned tear gas, and the marching tune that the Sergeants play is their menacing march on the rowdy, but harmless protesters. Buried here is a link to the Beatles, and their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Everyone got up to dance in the Summer of Love in 1969, only to be promptly sat back down, before they could even begin, by the Vietnam War. More references to the Kent State Massacre, and then McLean rounds the verse out, as always, by lamenting the loss of good music, and goodness among the public, in modern America.
The next verse takes us back into the heart of the Altamont uprising.
Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend
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
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singin’
The generation, gathered all in one place at the Altamont Free concert, are ‘lost in space’. This might be an allusion to the rampant drug culture of the 60s and 70s, or the dreamy wishes of libertarian thinkers. Or, it’s a pointed remark at the US-Soviet Space and Arms race which consumed much of Cold War politics. Either way, there’s no time left to start again.
Now, Jack Flash is Mick Jagger. A character for the song ‘Jumping’ Jack Flash’. He’s sat on a candlestick, a reference to the pyrotechnics of the Altamont concert (and the general frenzy), because fire is the devil’s only friend, and Jagger is, to McLean, the devil ( I told you he hates him). His hands are literally balled up with rage as he watches Jagger feed off the riotous crowd.
None of the Hell’s Angels could get through to Jagger, he laments (though they aren’t exactly on their best behaviour themselves, but what did you expect from America’s biggest biker gang). The final few lines of the verse reference the killing that takes place, and Jaggers unaffected stance, as he watched the murder take place before his stage, and continues to play. McLean’s struck gold with evidence of music’s moral decline here.
The final verse slows down and tethers McLean’s thoughts back to his utopian 50s society:
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most-
the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost-
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singing
It’s typically considered that the girl who sang the blues is Janis Joplin, who died - turned away - in 1970. McLean has himself refuted this claim. In any case, she can’t give McLean happy news because there isn’t any - society is rotting.
The Sacred Store is the music store Don used to go to, where they’d let you play records before you bought them; where he’d heard the music years before. They’d stopped this practice by 1970, hence the music wouldn’t play. After those general cultural laments, and confirmation that The Beatles and popular music have truly become more popular than Jesus - that the Church is broken now, McLean moves on to the three men he admires most, the Holy Trinity of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper, who’s deaths ignited this entire debacle for McLean. They caught the last train for the coast - died (or, in a much less satisfying but more literal reading, went to Los Angeles,) - and with them went the purity of the 50s. That was the day the music died.