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American Pie
"Do you recall what was revealed?"
Helter-skelter in the summer swelter, the birds flew off
with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and fallin' 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 the sergeants
played a marching tune
We all got up to dance 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'...
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Contents
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Practice was over. In January of 1964 the U.S. was still
getting over the death of its President, John F. Kennedy. It needed some
cheering up. And inside of one unprecedented month, it got a huge dose.
The Beatles made their unforgettable appearance on the Ed
Sullivan Show on a Sunday night in February and the whole nation stopped
and watched. [True story: my father, a Baptist preacher, even let out church
a little early that night so we could all get home and see these "long-haired"
freaks from Liverpool.]
It wasn't just the Beatles, but an entire invasion from Britian
assaulted the American Pie: the Byrds, the Stones, the Animals, and a host
of others.
So why does this verse start out with "Helter Skelter in
a summer swelter"? Helter Skelter, a Beatles song on the infamous "White
Album", came much later than the original invasion. What's happening is
McLean, in this epic poem, is clustering the British invasion with all
the tumult of the 60s. The social voice that came through in the folk-rock
sound of Dylan, is now full of messages, many of them overt, many of them
hidden. The overt messages include the dangers of nuclear war, the Vietnam
war, the evil capitalistic system.
Associated with these social protest songs are the summer
swelters: riots in LA , Detroit, and at the Democratic convention in Chicago;
the Charles Manson murders (which Manson claimed were connected with the
song Helter Skelter); the marches for civil rights and against the Vietnam
War.
The covert messages in this verse are basically one -- drugs
-- and McLean has a disdain for it. The Byrds sang about it in Eight Miles
High (a song that has roundly been perceived as the original drug song...but
the Byrds deny it to this day). But they were falling fast and landing
foul on grass (marijuana).
During this mid-60s era, the predominating influence on rock
music without a doubt the Beatles. Dylan is the "jester on the sidelines
in a cast," the sidelines being on the outside of the rock music scene,
and the cast referring to a motorcycle accident he claims laid him up,
one that some observers say never happened.
The "halftime air" that was sweet perfume points to
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles' landmark album of the
mid-60s (the halftime). This was the first "theme" album. It also was one
that showed incredible experimentation with sound. It brought full orchestras
into rock music in songs like "A Day in the Life." Even Don McLean loved
this music...he got up to dance, didn't he?0
It was creative in every respect...including its introduction
to one of the darker themes that would predominate the Beatles' lives and
music the next few years: drugs.
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" seems to be a song promoting
acid use. "I Get By With a Little Help from my Friends" promotes getting
high. Other songs made more oblique references to drugs.
The enigmatic line, "Do you recall what was revealed,"
must be answered in the context of this verse. I believe what was revealed
was the dark underlying messages of rock music: the Marxism that was alluded
to in the previous verse, the advocation of drug use, the overly self-obsessed
quality of the lyrics.
It would appear the music has thoroughly died by this time,
but it hasn't. Verse 4 takes us down to the grave.
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