This Day in History: Don McLean was born on this day in 1945. McLean is best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie", an 8.5-minute folk rock cultural touchstone about the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation. This masterpiece McLean's is an homage inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959, and developments in American youth culture in the subsequent decade. The song popularized the expression "The Day the Music Died" in reference to the crash.
At 8.5 minutes, it also ranks as one of the longest singles of the rock era (second to Guns ‘N Roses “November Rain”). It has since been covered by everyone from Weird Al Yankovic to Madonna.
The song made references to Bob Dylan (the Jester), the Beatles (Sergeants), the Stones, the Byrds, Marx, the Manson Family (Helter Skelter in a summer swelter) and the 1968 Chicago Democratic Party National Convention.
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