Our Story Begins
In the verse that opens the song, McLean is nostalgic for the music of his youth and the way it made him feel at the time he was only discovering the joys of listening and creating music.
Rock ‘n’ roll singer, songwriter and guitarist Buddy Holly (1936 – 1959), right, with his group The Crickets, Jerry Allison and Joe Mauldin. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
” A long, long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.”
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.”
The first verse is the easiest to decipher, as McLean identifies Buddy Holly by the time of year he died, as well as the widow he left behind. As it will become more evident in the next verses, Holly’s passing had a profound impact on McLean, as he associated his 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 its most essential representatives passed away, but also when the old days and the optimism that came with them died as well.