American Pie Kinda Morning

This morning my daughter and I were driving to my mother's house.  We were listening to a playlist I'd made her a few years ago that begins with Don McLean's indispensable "American Pie."

I remember, just barely, the day when my dad first played me that record.

It was already scratchy vinyl, an imperfect recording.  It was magical, though, full of strange melodies, poetry, images that got into my head.

In college, sometimes I was almost afraid to play the cassette tape I kept of it (and still have): it was too haunting, really.

But the song gradually edged itself back into my life, particularly one night at a party when a guitar was passed around, and I didn't know what to play when my turn came, and so played "American Pie."

When Becca was about nine we used the song to explore the music and importance of the Clear Lake, Iowa crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson.

We didn't have enough money to go to the 50th anniversary, but we'd hoped to go, and viewed the maps and satellites, the routes, Bob Dylan's comments about seeing Buddy Holly perform and his presence with him during the recording sessions for one of his albums.

Crossing the Mississippi, we sang loudly.

Thanks, Don.  Impossible to overstate how cool that song is, and how right you are not to tell everybody what to think of it.

Sentimental, and so I thought I'd commemorate it.

We make our own meanings.  I can measure my relationship with my daughter by it, and her growth, as surely as I can by those little strips of tape on the wall that we use to measure her height.

Here's a nice live performance of it from 1972: how like 1972 to have a bunch of ornamental people sitting in the background just to clap during the chorus.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I love that song! It brings back so many memories of my childhood. My best friend and I would sit around trying to interpret the secret meaning of the lyrics.
Not too long ago, my daughter and I were in some store and it was playing in the background. When we got in the car, I just started singing it. Let's just say it's not my daughter's cup of tea. There was a lot of eye rolling and heavy sighing and begging for me to stop...sad.

how like 1972 to have a bunch of ornamental people sitting in the background just to clap during the chorus.

That's hilarious. Maybe they won a contest or something. And now they can show that video to their grandchildren. Dang I'm old.