For nearly 50 years it has been regarded as one of music’s best-loved classics, a poignant ode to a lost era of America after the untimely death of Buddy Holly.
But Don McLean has revealed his anthem to ‘the day the music died’, American Pie, may have also been about the untimely passing of his father who had Scottish roots.
The well-known song dating back to 1971, which is frequently crowned the best of all time in polls, has lyrics that have been endlessly debated over by music fans.
Until now it had been thought that it told the story of the 1959 plane crash that killed Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson, plus pilot Roger Peterson.
But in an interview today about his career, when asked about whether the first verse could be about the death of his father, McLean said: ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head.’
Don McLean (left, pictured in Las Vegas in November last year) had been thought to have written his 1971 hit American Pie about Buddy Holly (right, pictured in New York City in 1958)
The plane crash near Clear Lake in Iowa in February 1959 claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and JP ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson, plus pilot Roger Peterson
Speaking to the Guardian, he added: ‘I mean, that’s exactly right. That’s why I don’t like talking about the lyrics because I wanted to capture and say something that was almost unspeakable. It’s indescribable. American Pie is a biographical song.’
McLean, who is now aged 75 and lives in Palm Desert, California, had a vision aged 15 that his father Donald Snr was going to die, and told his grandmother about it.
He claimed she said ‘don’t be ridiculous’ to him and asked ‘why would you say such a thing’, but McLean replied: ‘Because it’s going to happen.’
Just a few days later his father collapsed and died in front of him in January 1961.
McLean said: ‘I saw how he looked. He’d turned green. I didn’t know what I was going to do without him.’
McLean, who grew up in New Rochelle, a commuter city near New York, said he ‘cried for two years’ after his father died and blamed himself.
Speaking to the Scottish Herald in May 2018, McLean said his father, whose ‘roots were in Scotland’, was ‘a hard-working, down to earth man with a good sense of business’.
He added: ‘We weren’t rich but he knew the value of a good location and bought a small house in a wealthy neighbourhood. Yet he didn’t share my passion for music.
‘To him, it was just a distraction. He certainly didn’t see music as a good career move. He wanted me to work in an office. Of course, I had other ideas.’
McLean’s mother Elizabeth Bucci was born in New York to Italian parents, while his father’s family had lived in New York state for generations but had Scottish ancestry.
According to Ancestry records, McLean traces his Scottish roots back to his great-great-great-grandfather John McLean who was born on the island of Jura on July 3, 1755 – and is believed to have moved to the US aged 20 in 1775.
McLean’s hit song American Pie is generally viewed to be about the downfall of the US in the 1960s following the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Texas in November 1963.
Fans have also debated over references within the song they believe could be to the likes of Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Mick Jagger or the Beatles.
As for the Holly reference, McLean wrote in an open letter to fans in 1993: ‘As you can imagine, over the years I’ve been asked many times to discuss and explain my song ‘American Pie.
‘I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas.
‘I dedicated the album American Pie to Buddy Holly as well in order to connect the entire statement to Holly in hopes of bringing about an interest in him, which subsequently did occur.
‘You will find many ‘interpretations’ of my lyrics but none of them by me. Isn’t this fun?
‘Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realised that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.’
Don McLean, whose father was Scottish, is pictured with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backstage at ITV’s Loose Women in May 2015
McLean’s hit American Pie is generally viewed to be about the downfall of the US in the 1960s
Speaking in an undated radio interview, he also once said: ‘The fact that Buddy Holly seems to be the primary thing that people talk about when they talk about ‘American Pie’ is, is kind of sad.
‘It’s only the beginning is about Buddy Holly, and the rest of it goes on and talks about America and politics and the country, and trying to catch some kind of a special feeling that I had about my country, especially in 1970 and ’71, when it was very turbulent.’
In April, McLean spoke out about how most modern hits make him ‘want to hang himself’, complaining of a ‘nihilistic’ society in which nothing is respected.
McLean, who is said to have made £120million across his 50-year career, told the Greatest Music of All Time podcast of songwriting: ‘Now… the music doesn’t mean anything.
‘We have kind of a nihilistic society; no one believes in anything, no one likes anything, no one has any respect for anything and the music shows that.
‘[Music] does not exist – there’s some form of music-like sound but it’s not music. It’s a single note or three or four notes repeated over again with a chorus that’s drummed into your head or it makes you want to hang yourself.’
McLean added that he did not intend to retire, vowing instead to ‘die on stage’.