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The Day the Music Died On February 3, 1959, the single-engine plane carrying famed musicians Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson (the “Big Bopper”), and Ritchie Valens crashed on a snow covered Iowa field killing everyone on board. It was later, in 1971, that the idiom “the day the music died” was coined about that fateful night. Don McLean uses that phrase in his eight and a half minute epic song, “American Pie.” This ballad tells about the tragedy that occurred on that bitter February evening and the downfall of rock music -- and the ‘apple pie’ image of America -- that ensued. “American Pie” has numerous levels of meaning, but one of the primary motifs is that it is a tribute to Buddy Holly. McLean has said little about the implications of the song; only hinting to it being biographical in nature. It is how he viewed America at the time, and the direction he saw it was heading. He further describes how he has not given a full line-by-line explanation of his lyrics, in part, because much of it is illogical in nature. He has stated that they lyrics are “beyond analysis; they’re poetry.” With that being the closest he has ever come to satisfying public demand for the song’s true meaning, it makes it diffic