{"id":18867,"date":"2022-07-19T06:53:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/i-said-don-its-time-for-you-to-reveal-50-years-later-the-truth-behind-american-pie-music\/"},"modified":"2022-07-19T06:53:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:53:53","slug":"i-said-don-its-time-for-you-to-reveal-50-years-later-the-truth-behind-american-pie-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/i-said-don-its-time-for-you-to-reveal-50-years-later-the-truth-behind-american-pie-music\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I said, Don, it’s time for you to reveal’: 50 years later, the truth behind American Pie | music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A<\/span><\/span> long, long time ago \u2013 five decades to be exact \u2013 America was roiled by wrenching generational showdowns, massive street protests, and a blazing array of social justice movements. Now, half a century later, similar events and dynamics dominate the public conversation. So, perhaps, it’s poetic that precisely five decades have elapsed since a song that captured all that cultural turmoil, American Pie, became a smash hit. \u201cIt’s a song that spoke to its time,\u201d said Spencer Proffer, who has produced a comprehensive new documentary about the song, titled The Day the Music Died. \u201cBut it’s just as applicable now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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In fact, American Pie has only gained in fans and expanded in meaning as it has hit successive generations and generated fresh covers. Over the years, it has been interpreted by artists from Madonna (who created a commercially triumphant, if aesthetically limp, take in 2000) to Garth Brooks to Jon Bon Jovi to John Mayer. Throughout the years, journalists have subjected the song to a Talmudic level of scrutiny, while its songwriter, Don McLean, has doled out dribs and drabs of insight into his intent. By contrast, the new documentary offers the first line-by-line deconstruction of the song’s lyrics, as well as the most detailed analysis to date of its musical evolution. \u201cI told Don, ‘It’s time for you to reveal what 50 years of journalists have wanted to know,’\u201d Proffer said. \u201cThis movie was a concerted effort to raise the curtain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, it offers an emotional account of the tragic event that McLean used as his jumping off point for the larger story he wanted to tell.<\/p>\n

The event, which McLean dubbed \u201cthe day the music died\u201d, shattered the pop world of its day and had a formative effect on the songwriter. On a frigid night in 1959, a small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson (The Big Bopper) crashed in a corn field in Clear Lake, Iowa, minutes after take-off, killing everyone on board. The documentary begins with that event, traveling back to the Surf Ballroom, where the stars played their final show. The film-makers scored a coup by bringing on camera a man who saw that fateful concert, as well as the man who owns the aviation company that rented the doomed plane. More, it features a moving interview with Valens ‘sister Connie, who we see thanking McLean for immortalizing her brother in song.<\/p>\n

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