It climaxed in the huge sing-along-chorus: “We were singin’, ‘Bye-bye, Miss American pie’/Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry/Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey ‘n rye/And singin’, “This’ll be the day that I die.” He thought he “needed a big song about America.” The first verse and melody seemed to just tumble out. He was creating his second album in 1971 while the nation was racked by assassinations, anti-war protests and civil right marches. Years later, McLean would plumb that pain in “American Pie,” baking in his own grief at his father’s passing and writing an eulogy for the American dream. I may have actually cried,” he says in the film. Young McLean was a paperboy - “every paper I’d deliver” - and adored Elvis, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley but especially Holly, whose death deeply affected him.
