The Day The Music Died
Director: Mark Moormann
Release: July 8, 2022
Producer(s): Dave Harding, Spencer Proffer
Executive Producer: Bruce Gillmer
Stars/Actors: Don McLean, Peter Gallagher, Brian Wilson, Garth Brooks,
Music by: Don McLean
Production Company: MTV Studios
Genre(s): Documentary, Biography, Music, History
ID: tt12992162
Runtime: 94 minutes
Based On: Based on the song American Pie by Don McLean.
Synopsis: 50 years after its release, Don McLean shares the secrets behind his iconic song ‘American Pie’, one of the great musical touchstones of the 20th century.
Declassified by Agent Palmer: Entwined Legacies Celebrated in “The Day the Music Died” Doc
Quotes and Lines
Don McLean: “A pink carnation,” sure, I went to a lot of proms, but I never had a pickup truck. But I could have anything I wanted in my songs.
Don McLean: And then when that “Buddy Holly Story: Volume 1” came out right after, that just did me in because there were so many beautiful songs on there. You know, I was so touched and moved by this beautiful face, and nobody talked about him ‘cause he was dead. Americans didn’t talk about dead people. Onward.
Garth Brooks: I think you’re looking at a 50-year-old song that gets prettier every year, classier every year. This thing–this thing is timeless, because no one’s ever written anything like it since.
Don McLean: …and it all came out right through to the day the music died. Every single word I wrote just came like a genie out of a bottle. And I said to myself, “Wow, I got something.” So I’m thinking as a few weeks went by, I don’t want this to be a ballad, so I got to write a hot chorus.
Zenos Frudakis: Turning your dreams into reality is what we do as artists.
Ed Freeman: “American Pie” was really encapsulating the experience of a whole generation. We were witness to the death of the American dream. We went through both Kennedys being shot, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Vietnam,, you know, hippies thought we were gonna take over the world with love and peace… And it didn’t happen. For me, “American Pie” is the eulogy for a dream that didn’t take place.