Don McLean reveals secrets behind American Pie
Original manuscript of iconic song expected to fetch up to $1.5m at auction in New York and includes lost ending, describing how “the music was reborn”
Christie's auction house in New York is selling Don McClean's American Pie manuscript
Singer-songwriter Don McLean is selling his original manuscript and notes to American Pie for an estimated 1-1.5 million dollars (£675,000-£1 million)
The wistful anthem that asks "Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?" is going on the auction block today.
Christie's in New York says McLean is selling 16 pages that include the original working manuscript and typed drafts of the song.
The eight-minute American Pie was released in 1971 and was a No 1 US hit for four weeks in 1972.
"The day the music died" refers to the February 3 1959 deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in a plane crash.
McLean, 69, who lives in Maine, says writing the song was "a mystical trip into his past".
Press Association
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Don McLean has finally revealed the meaning behind his 1971 hit American Pie, one of the most enigmatic songs in pop history.
In notes that accompany the sale of his original manuscript at auction in New York on Tuesday, he describes it as a morality song that charts the decline of the USA and its loss of innocence.
While details of the lyrics have long been guessed – taking as its starting point his reaction to hearing in 1959 that Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper on “the day the music died” – few have confidently decoded the riddle in its complex verses and scattershot cultural references.
Now, with his handwritten pages expected to fetch up to $1.5 million at Christie's, he has explained almost all.
“Basically in American Pie things are heading in the wrong direction,” he said in an interview published in the auction catalogue.
“It is becoming less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”
In notes that accompany the sale of his original manuscript at auction in New York on Tuesday, he describes it as a morality song that charts the decline of the USA and its loss of innocence.
While details of the lyrics have long been guessed – taking as its starting point his reaction to hearing in 1959 that Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper on “the day the music died” – few have confidently decoded the riddle in its complex verses and scattershot cultural references.
Now, with his handwritten pages expected to fetch up to $1.5 million at Christie's, he has explained almost all.
“Basically in American Pie things are heading in the wrong direction,” he said in an interview published in the auction catalogue.
“It is becoming less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”
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