Why Was the “American Pie” Manuscript Sold at Auction?
Auctioned at Christie’s on April 7, 2015, the original “American Pie” lyrics sold for US$1.2 million. The handwritten lyrics consisted of a never-before-seen 16-page document that included 237 lines of manuscript and 26 lines of typed text. When asked why he decided to part with the lyrics at that specific moment, McLean stated: “I’m going to be 70 this year. I have two children and a wife, and none of them seem to have the mercantile instinct. I want to get the best deal that I can for them. It’s time.”
American Pie” Manuscript
Source: nypost.com
He added that, for years, he hadn’t been sure he still had the manuscript but started to look for it after former Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres asked him about his thoughts on giving his papers to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When he found the manuscript, McLean said that it was the first time in decades that he had seen it.
Consisting of multiple pages on colored paper and several pages taken out from a spiral notebook, the manuscript includes several lines that didn’t make the cut for the final version of the song, such as “And there I stood alone and afraid/I knelt to my knees and there I prayed/and I prepared to give all I had to give/If only he would make it live again.”