Buddy Holly’s Tragic Ending
Almost immediately, he turns his attention to a seminal event that cast a shadow over his joy – the death of Buddy Holly who had died in a plane crash in February 1959. At the time of the event, McLean himself was a paperboy, and he found out about the death of the music star by reading the front page of the newspapers he was supposed to deliver.
The Daily Tribune newspaper reports the deaths of Buddy Holly, J. P. ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson and Ritchie Valens (Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns)
“But February made me shiver
With every paper, I’d deliver
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
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.”
As it will become more evident in the next verses, Holly’s passing had a profound impact on McLean, as he associated it with the disappearance of the optimism and innocence of the 1950s. As such, the day the music died is not only the day one of the most essential musicians passed away, but also when the old days and the optimism that came with them died as well.