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The meaning of American Pie...

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Bret

Bret

Yoda
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Thanks, Bret -

That's always been an enigma of a song. Some of the meanings were fairly clear, but several were a bit more obscure. Good stuff.
 
Yea a lot of the lyrics where mystery to me too. It has a double hidden meaning for me because the day the music died was a few days after I was born in 1959. But the song was actually written ten years later.

I’m not a fan of Dylan so forgive me but why is he referred to as the Jester?????
 
Bob Dylan's called the jester because he lots of times used jokers, jesters or clowns in his lyrics. "When the jester sang for the king and queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean"... Dylan wore a red windbreaker on one of his album covers that was identical to what Dean wore in "Rebel Without a Cause."

"Oh and while the king was looking down the jester stole his thorny crown" refers to how Dylan took Elvis' place as #1 performer.

"With the jester on the sidelines in a cast" is about Dylan's bad motorcycle accident that kept him from recording for some time.
 
jaybird said:
Bob Dylan's called the jester because he lots of times used jokers, jesters or clowns in his lyrics. "When the jester sang for the king and queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean"... Dylan wore a red windbreaker on one of his album covers that was identical to what Dean wore in "Rebel Without a Cause."
Click to expand...
Ok now I remember the jesters, but come-on I used to have a red wind breaker that looks like Dean's too. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

jaybird said:
"Oh and while the king was looking down the jester stole his thorny crown" refers to how Dylan took Elvis' place as #1 performer.

"With the jester on the sidelines in a cast" is about Dylan's bad motorcycle accident that kept him from recording for some time.
Click to expand...
These I knew even before this video.

But thanks for clearing that the Jester thingy.
 
I didn't watch the video. That song was the topic of many hours of "contemplation" in my *youth.*
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
 
Thanks Bret.I used to have that in 8 Track,& like
Snoopy said in the cartoon - "American Pie - over & over".
Listening to him sing the song now is good,but I like
his original version better.He always seemed to avoid answering about the meanings in the song.I think that he
enjoyed keeping the mystery alive.
One of my favorite songs,& a great "Road Trip" song
as well.

- Doug
 
When that was getting air play we'd just found the Elan, had two MGB's, lived in VA. as a USAF photojournalist. Had the priveledge of being an 'adult leader' <snicker> of a Boy Scout "Eagle" program: Photography Post. We segue'd some of the sessions into discussion of the song. Often wonder what became of those young men and women. A clever bunch of 'military brats'.
 
When I spent a semester abroad in Italy in 2003, the last thing I ever imagined that I would do was spend an evening in Rome, drinking with a group of Irish Rugby fans (in town for an Ireland vs Italy match) on a patio bar in the Campo dei Fiori, where the church used to burn/hang heretics, singing American Pie and being shushed by a lone policemen at 2:30am while finishing the beers that the bar left us after they closed. What a night that was...

Still not sure exactly how I caught that train three hours later to Naples and then on to Sorrento...?
 
There doesn't seem to be much of an explanation of just where "Miss American Pie" fits in. I had heard that this was the name of the airplane that crashed. It was also rumored that Don Mclean was dating a Miss America Pageant contestant, and that he broke up with her on February 3, 1959. Since he would have been just a few months past his 13th birthday, this seems unlikely. Seems like a 13 year old dating a beauty pageant contestant might inspire a different type of song. Anyone know if there is any truth to the airplane name story? In the movie about Richie Valens, "La Bamba" there was a shot of the nose of the airplane with the name painted on it. Also a scene of Waylon Jennings losing the coin toss and having to ride the bus.
Bruce
 
I dunno... Some mysteries are better left unsolved. Kinda like Carly Simon's song, "You're So Vain" - always been a big discussion about whom she refers to. Over the years, she's been asked to identify him, but remains coy about it. I like that. Much more fun to speculate.

Part of what makes "American Pie" such a great song is the room for interpretation, at least for me. And that way, it means what it means to each one who listens and relates in his or her own way.

Just my nickel's worth. (Two cents just doesn't buy what it used to!)
 
"You're So Vain"
Supposedly it was a composite of objectionable traits in a variety of people she'd been involved with before she married James Taylor, Mick Jagger, Cat Stevens, Warren Beatty, Kris Kristofferson.

Over the years, she's never given it up, but has teased with 'letters' that are in the person's name -- A, R, E. So that leaves Kristofferson & Cat Stevens out
 
I was always under the impression it was Howard Huges she was on about... <shrug>
 
DrEntropy said:
I was always under the impression it was Howard Huges she was on about... <shrug>
Click to expand...
Just a few years before her time. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
BAH! The song came out in late'72, Hughes didn't kack 'till '76. There was plenty of time ahead of those events for them to have met... and "Howard Hughes" has "A", "E" and "R"!!!

Has anyone got a reliable source for the Saratoga races from, say, 1968 thru 1972 we can look at?? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif

...or flight plan data for places to have total eclipses in the same timeframe? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif

I just KNOW I'm right!!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif
 
Com'on Doc, Granted he was rich but Hughes was a full fledged (albeit drug induced some say) recluse by that time and was sporting those stylish long finger nails and long scrackly hair by this time.
 
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