The website www.fiftiesweb.com includes Rich Kulawiec’s annotated version of Don McLean’s song “American Pie”. Here’s a taste, with an interpretation of the opening lines:
A long, long time ago...
"American Pie" reached #1 in the US in 1972, but the album containing it was released in 1971. Buddy Holly died in 1959.
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance,
That I could make those people dance,
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
One of early rock and roll's functions was to provide dance music for various social events. McLean recalls his desire to become a musician playing that sort of music.
But February made me shiver,
Buddy Holly died on February 3, 1959 in a plane crash in Iowa during a snowstorm. The news came to most of the world on the morning of February 3, which is why it's known as The Day The Music Died.
With every paper I'd deliver,
Don McLean's only job besides being a full-time singer-songwriter was being a paperboy.
Bad news on the doorstep...
I couldn't take one more step.
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Holly's recent bride, Maria Elena, was pregnant when the crash took place; she had a miscarriage shortly afterward.
But something touched me deep inside,
The day the music died.
The same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly also took the lives of Richie Valens ("La Bamba") and The Big Bopper ("Chantilly Lace"). Since all three were so prominent at the time, February 3, 1959 became known as "The Day The Music Died".
The Buddy Holly Centre, which is housed in a renovated train depot in Texas, has an extensive website (www.buddyhollycenter.org) filled with details about the singer’s short life. Included in the display at the Centre are Buddy Holly's Fender Stratocaster; a songbook used by Holly and the Crickets, clothing, photographs, recording contracts, tour itineraries, Holly's glasses, homework assignments, report cards, and much more.
To learn more about the day the music died, check out these books from your Library:
The day the music died: The last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens by Larry Lehmer.
This exhaustively researched account tragedy includes every detail of the tour, accident and aftermath.
Buddy Holly: A Biography by Ellis Ambrun
In depth interviews with family and friends add to the Buddy Holly story in this book.
Remembering Buddy: the definitive biography by John Goldrosen and John Beecher
This scrap-book style volume includes a discography, recording session log, chart file and tour dates.
Your Library has several Buddy Holly CDs available including originals “Oh boy”, 50 classic recordings in “The Buddy Holly Collection”, and tribute albums “Not fade away: Remembering Buddy Holly” and “Les grandes chansons du Buddy Holly” by Dick Rivers, a French singer of Holly’s generation.
Your Library carries the movie “The Buddy Holly Story” on DVD and VHS. This movie, starring Gary Busey, was made in 1978. Jeffry Westhoff, movie critic quoted on the web site RottenTomatoes.com, points out that “Gary Busey's great performance offsets the fact that the script is about 80 percent fiction.”
Whenever a rising star in the universe of entertainment dies, it prompts people to think about where their career could have gone, if only they had lived. Remember Buddy Holly, seize the day, and shape your future today.
Joanna Aegard, Head of Virtual Library Services, www.tbpl.ca. This column appears Sundays on this page. If you have a comment about today's column, we would love to hear from you. Check out the blog at http://libdetective.blogspot.com.
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