American Pie: A Songscape Analysis

newdigital American Pie: A Songscape Analysis

Article

Magazine

COMUNICAZIONI SOCIALI

Fascicle

COMUNICAZIONI SOCIALI - 2022 - 3. Cantautore: the Songwriter in Culture and the Media

Title

American Pie: A Songscape Analysis

Author

Thomas MacFarlane

Publisher

Vita e Pensiero

Format

Article |

Pdf

Online from

03-2023

Doi

10.26350/001200_000168

Issn

0392-8667 (print) | 1827-7969 (digital)

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Description Readers' comments

The following discussion will explore ‘American Pie’, the landmark 1971 recording by Don McLean. More than fifty years after its initial release, the song/track continues to fascinate listeners with its appealing musical setting and its wealth of possible meanings. Here, McLean seems to be reporting poetically on the condition of a society in danger of spinning wildly out of control. In the process, he foregrounds the importance of the singer-songwriter as a kind of early warning system for human culture. The creative strategies McLean employed for ‘American Pie’ had their origins in his earlier works. Don McLean’s first album, “Tapestry’’ (1970), featured a series of character sketches in which he cast a critical eye on the realities of town and country life. The title track, however, was more ambitious in scope. There, he made a plea for environmental awareness by conjuring up a rich and vivid landscape as the overarching context for human experience. When the time came to compose ‘American Pie’, McLean seemed to creatively blend both of these approaches. The result might best be described as a sonic mural in which the main character/narrator recounts his own experiences the day the music died, and then connects them within the larger context of a culture headed into chaos. The discussion presented here will employ Songscape analysis, an approach designed to engage a recorded work on its own terms. It consists of explorations of musical form done from the perspective of the composer, descriptions of the recording process, and interpretations of the sonic imagery evident on the finished track. It also allows for the consideration of entire albums as galleries of recorded sound. It should be noted that the goal here is not to reduce or to explain. Instead, it is hoped that this discussion will help generate new insights into a compelling work of art.