By Chris Gibbons
(This story was originally published in the August 30, 2006 Philadelphia Daily News and is one of the stories in the book “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life” by Chris Gibbons)
I rummaged through the drawers of my brother’s dresser, not really sure of what I was looking for. I guess I just wanted to touch something that I knew he had touched, or hold something that he had held. I don’t really know. The things that he left behind were all that remained, and I naively thought that if I could just hold his things and smell his clothes and stare at his picture, then maybe he would seem closer and the pain would go away. My big brother Jack had tragically drowned just a few weeks prior to that, and I was searching for something, anything, that would alleviate the sadness. I found a 45 rpm record in his top drawer. It was American Pie by Don McLean, a huge hit during that summer of 1972 when he died. I stared at the record, and vividly remembered how Jack would smile that half-grin of his whenever that song came on the radio and sing along. For the first time since he had died, I smiled.
American Pie is legendary in the annals of music industry history. Originally released in November, 1971, it moved up the charts faster than any other song in the history of United Artists. It reached number one in January, 1972 and stayed on the hit parade for nearly four months, a remarkable achievement for a song 8 ½ minutes in length. It sold more than three million copies as a single, five million as an album. The song is dedicated to Don’s boyhood hero, Buddy Holly, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1959. The song has long been interpreted as McLean’s social commentary on the chaotic state of America in the years following Holly’s death.
As a young man, Don lamented the loss of many things he believed in while growing up. “In a sense, American Pie was a very despairing song. In another, though, it was very hopeful. Pete Seeger told me he saw it as a song in which people were saying something. They’d been fooled, they’d been hurt, and it wasn’t going to happen again. That’s a good way to look at it — a hopeful way.”
For me and my family, the song is now indelibly linked to my brother Jack. Every time we hear it we think of him, and we agree with McLean that the song can be both hopeful and despairing. Sometimes we’ll laugh when we hear it, and sometimes we’ll cry. We have strange stories associated with the song as well. One time, I was driving in the car with my wife and infant son. We stopped at a red light and I mentioned that the street in front of us was the last one my brother had walked on. A few minutes later we pulled into a parking space. I pointed to a man walking a few feet from our car and said, “This is weird. See that guy over there? He was with Jack when he died.” At that same moment, American Pie came on the radio. I was momentarily shaken as I looked in the rear view mirror at my son in the back seat. His name is Jack.
For a few years now, I’ve been searching for Don McLean. I’ll frequently check his website for local appearances, and on October 7th he’s performing in Carlisle, Pa. I’ve heard that Don will sometimes talk to his fans after his shows and my family and I think that this might be a good opportunity for us to let him know about the special connection that exists between his song and our brother Jack. We don’t know if we’ll ever be able to tell him in person, or how he’ll react if we do. He probably gets stories like this all of the time. But, we feel we owe it to Jack to let McLean know that the only record he owned when he died was American Pie, and how that music used to make him, and now all of us, smile.
Postscript: On a summer night in 2005, my brother Mike and I sat in my parents backyard in Cape May Courthouse, NJ, and listened to 70’s music playing on the radio as we looked up at the stars. “American Pie” came on the radio, and we sang along. When the song was over, I turned to Mike and said, “I’ve had this idea in my mind for the last few years. I think we should track down Don McLean and let him know about Jack and his song.” Mike brushed aside tears and said, “I think we should too.”
Our search finally culminated in Carlisle, Pa. in October of 2006. I made it to Don’s show that night, along with my brothers, Mark and Mike. Prior to the start of the show, Mike asked one of the guys helping backstage if he could give McLean a copy of the article. He took the copy backstage to Don. To our surprise, the guy returned with the copy of the article and said “Don’s been waiting to meet you…he’ll see you after the show.” It turns out that he has old friends in Philadelphia and someone had already sent him a copy of the article.
We met Don after the show, and he turned out to be one of the nicest guys we’ve met! He wanted to know all about Jack and our family (it turns out that Don went to Villanova for a year in the 1960’s and also had friends at Temple University as well). Don told me before we left, “That was a beautiful article and I’ve kept a copy of it.” It was a really special night for all of us.
I’ve since learned that Don wrote some of “American Pie” at the home of his first wife’s parents in Chestnut Hill, a neighborhood in Philadelphia where my older brothers, Jack, Jerry, and Mike, played little league baseball and basketball. Who knows – perhaps there was a day before he was famous that Don walked past three young boys on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill without realizing that a song he would eventually write would spiritually resonate with those kids in ways that Don could never fathom.