Black and white American (song)

See also: Black and white American

American Pie is the title of a song of Don McLean, Auteur-compositeur-interprète of American rock'n'roll , which pays mainly homage to the dead musicians The Day the Music Died ( the day when the music died ).

Recorded and diffused in 1971, it is the first title of the album of the same name. At its exit into simple, in 1972, it was at the head sales during four weeks. Long of eight minutes and half, the song reports through a series of allusions the history of the Rock “roll of the air crash where died Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson Jr. (The Big Bopper), in 1959, at the beginning of the Years 1970 where the song is made up.

The interpretation of the words of the song is the object of many controversies. If McLean clearly dedicated the album with Buddy Holly, the song does not mention any name of singer explicitly. So some of allusions are easily decoded, others cause long debates, that Don McLean refused to slice. Thus, a journalist requiring explanations of him on the words, Don McLean answered: Afflicted to let to you manage all alone, but I understood a long ago that a type-setter must write then to pass to another thing. .

American Pie belongs to the American musical inheritance, and for this reason, it was many taken again times, parodied and commented on. The most known recovery is undoubtedly that of Madonna in 2000.

Recording and left

The recording of American Pie proceeded on May 26th, 1971. Its first radio operator passage takes place later one month, on June 26th, in homage to the closing of the legendary scene rock'n'roll of New York, Fillmore East, envisaged the following day. The individual finally leaves in 45 turns in October, with Empty Chairs on the face B. the next month, the long version of the song - more than eight minutes - also leaves: the song is then distributed on the two faces of the disc. The individual ones are published by the label United Artists.

American Pie appears in the classifications of Billboard on November 27th and reached the first position on January 15th, 1972, which it keeps until February 5th.

Interpretations

The site of Gift McLean describes thus the direction of American Pie :

American Pie is an autobiographical song on the life of Gift McLean of half of the Fifties at the end of the Sixties. Its life is presented there through the evolution of the popular music during this time, and the passage of the lightness of the Fifties at the dark period of end of the year 60.

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