The Complete True Story Behind “American Pie” by Don McLean

Things Become Ugly

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Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones at The Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969 in Livermore, California. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Reaching its climax in the fifth verse, “American Pie” references the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and the bloody concert held in the fall of 1969 at the Altamont Motor Speedway, California. Drawing together once more, the flower power hippies tried to recreate the atmosphere of the successful Woodstock music festival that took place a couple of months earlier:

” Oh, and there we were all in one place

A generation lost in space

With no time left to start again

So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

Jack Flash sat on a candlestick

‘Cause fire is the devil’s only friend

Oh and as I watched him on the stage

My hands were clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in Hell

Could break that Satan’s spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night

To light the sacrificial rite

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The day the music died”

Approximately 300,000 people gathered at Altamont, and alcohol and drug use led to escalating violence. The flower children weren’t able to recreate the atmosphere at Woodstock, but instead, found themselves lost in space, with no place left to go, mostly because the momentum of the revolution was long gone. References about the night of the Rolling Stones concert and the events that took place there fill this verse.

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