Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ Took 10 Years to Write

Classic rock music has produced few songs as layered, mysterious, and intertextual as Don McLean’s “American Pie.” The tune took many years to complete. McLean explained why it took so long to write “American Pie” and what he was trying to accomplish with the tune. Notably, “American Pie” was partly inspired by one of America’s most important rock stars.

Don McLean wrote ‘American Pie’ because he missed 1 singer’s music

“American Pie” starts with the sad story of a man dying young. This could apply to many people, but it’s often understood as a reference to the death of Buddy Holly. Holly died in a plane crash in 1959. Before Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, or the Sex Pistol’s Sid Vicous, Holly was arguably the first rock star whose early death shocked and shook the world of music.

During a 2022 interview with American Songwriter, the singer discussed the origin of “American Pie.” “It took 10 years to write ‘American Pie’ and to put that album together because, throughout those 10 years, I was harboring this yearning, I guess you could say, for Buddy Holly’s music and the sadness over his departure,” he said.

How a certain dessert inspired Don McLean

“American Pie” is one of the most ambitious songs in the history of popular music and it was ambitious from the offset. “I wanted to write a big song,” McLean said. “We were in the middle of a huge upheaval in the United States: drugs, the war in Vietnam, civil rights, cities on fire, bodies coming home every day from the war in Vietnam. I wanted to write a big song about America, and when I fused the death of Buddy Holly with these ideas, that’s when that song became what it was, but it took 10 years for me to wait for that moment to do that.”

The singer went on to explain the song’s title. “I chose ‘American Pie’ because you’re as American as apple pie,” McLean said in the film The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’. “But I just dropped the apple out and just said ‘American Pie.'”

‘American Pie’ was not the singer’s only hit

“American Pie” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. It became McLean’s only No. 1 hit — but what a No. 1 hit! “American Pie” stayed on the chart for 19 weeks. McLean had one other top 10 single — a cover of “Crying” by Roy Orbison. McLean’s decision to cover “Crying” makes a lot of sense considering Orbison was part of the musical generation that McLean paid tribute to with “American Pie.”

“American Pie” appeared on the album of the same title. The album American Pie reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for seven weeks, lasting on the chart for 48 weeks in total. The record is McLean’s only chart-topper in the United States. It produced one other minor hit: “Vincent,” which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and lasted on the chart for 12 weeks. Like “American Pie,” “Vincent” is a tribute to an artist, specifically Vincent van Gough.

“American Pie” took a long time to write and it was worth the wait.