But....what does it all mean?

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I’m sure most of us have done this at some point with this song. Heard American Pie today and ended up going down a small rabbit hole on the meaning (McLean has been famously tight lipped about it).

This site makes a pretty good breakout do the common theories on the lyrics....with bad spelling, horrid font colors and poor humor thrown in for free.

"American Pie" Lyrics - What Do They Mean?

Jim's Railroad Motorcars is an illustration of the restoration and operation of railroad motorcars and of the people involved. Many pictures and stories are featured.
www.whrc-wi.org

Anyone ever thought of the meaning and significance to the
 
We had extra credit opportunities with American Pie and We Didn’t Start the Fire, in HS.

Billy Joel was a little more straight forward.
 
"American Pie" is an allegorical composition about McLeans's interpretation and experiences of life in America during the 50's & 60's, with each verse representing a different piece of that "pie" as a whole...to which many people have vicariously associated and related to...and still do. Myself included.
 
broncosmitty said:
We had extra credit opportunities with American Pie and We Didn’t Start the Fire, in HS.

Billy Joel was a little more straight forward.
Click to expand...
Billy was just a tad bit more straight forward than Donny....ha ha.
 
I was about to list off some other things, but then I realizing I was fusing American Pie and Garden Party by Ricky Nelson in my head.

Yoko didn't bring her walrus in American Pie.
 
Orlando_Eagles said:
I’m sure most of us have done this at some point with this song. Heard American Pie today and ended up going down a small rabbit hole on the meaning (McLean has been famously tight lipped about it).

This site makes a pretty good breakout do the common theories on the lyrics....with bad spelling, horrid font colors and poor humor thrown in for free.

"American Pie" Lyrics - What Do They Mean?

Jim's Railroad Motorcars is an illustration of the restoration and operation of railroad motorcars and of the people involved. Many pictures and stories are featured.
www.whrc-wi.org

Anyone ever thought of the meaning and significance to the
Click to expand...
His famous response is “it means I’ll never have to work again in my life.”
 
broncosmitty said:
We had extra credit opportunities with American Pie and We Didn’t Start the Fire, in HS.

Billy Joel was a little more straight forward.
Click to expand...

8th Grade - We Didn't start the fire was an assignment we had a week to complete.

Good shit. I've tweeted that motherfucker a few times that it needs updated and kids need to do it more.
 
huskers1217 said:
8th Grade - We Didn't start the fire was an assignment we had a week to complete.

Good shit. I've tweeted that motherfucker a few times that it needs updated and kids need to do it more.
Click to expand...
I believe one of my daughters did that for an assignment a while back. We went through it together and there were even a few in the 50s I wasn’t fully aware of.
 
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK – blown away, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
 
TheDayMan said:
His famous response is “it means I’ll never have to work again in my life.”
Click to expand...
That was in response to Madonna doing a dance pop cover of the song around the turn of the millennium
 
huskers1217 said:
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK – blown away, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to
Click to expand...
Did you say Johnny Ray?
Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
Moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried
Sang along, who'd blame them?
 
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