Cameras capture McLean visiting the hallowed Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, the last place Holly and his fellow musicians played before their fatal flight in 1959. The 90-minute documentary incorporates news footage of the 70s and uses actors in recreations. 'I always feel a tug inside me whenever I think about Buddy.' I don't know what it is, but it's exactly what I've been wanting to try to get a hold of - that feeling about Buddy Holly - for all these years and that plane crash,' McLean says.

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.'' The first verse and melody seemed to just tumble out. He thought he 'needed a big song about America'.

He was creating his second album in 1971 while the US was rocked 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 a 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. He had bronchial asthma, prompting the description of him in American Pie as 'a lonely teenage broncin' buck.' The 'sacred store' he sings about was the House of Music on Main Street, where he bought records and his first guitar. McLean was 13 and living in a suburban, middle-class home in New Rochelle, New York, when the crash occurred. The documentary starts when a single-engine plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Jiles P Richardson, the 'Big Bopper,' plunged into a cornfield north of Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959, killing the three stars and their pilot. 'I was up at night, smiling and thinking about what I'm going to do with this.' A eulogy for the American dream 'That was the fun of writing the song,' he tells the AP. It also represents an elegant film blueprint for future deep dives into a song and its wider cultural relevance.įor those who have wondered about the lyrics they are singing loudly in bars and cars, McLean shares the secrets. It's essential viewing for McLean fans or anyone who has marvelled at his sonic treasure. McLean - and his singular tune about 'the day the music died' - are now the subject of a full-length feature documentary, The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean's American Pie, streaming on Paramount+.

American pie story behind the song