AMERICAN PIE LYRICS POLL UGGHHHHH

BLAME DAN

GOOD JOB SAILOR

I saw Satan laughing with delight,
Nnnnnnggngnngghhhh

OKAY THESE CANNOT BE THE REAL LYRICS

MASTER P DID NOT DO A VERSION OF "American Pie"

that's how Satan laughs, Dan

I was a lonely teenage bronkin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pick up truck
But I knew I was out of luck,
I hate this song and want to die.

lolololololololol

I never actually knew that the lyrics to this song were so fucked up.

Bad news on the door step,
I couldn't take one more step,

rhyming "step" with "step" = you're fired, mr shitty lyricist

98+% of the above lyrics are real.

Just be thankful that I didn't post the annotated version I found COMPLETE WITH EXPLANATORY FOOTNOTES.

Jack Flash sat on a candle stick <--- ow?

"And while Lennon read a book on Marx" yeah "great" pun but then you realize that like most of the rest of this crap it doesn't really make sense.

I hate this song and want to die FTW

TERRIFYING NONSENSICAL AMERICAN PIE LYRIC FOOTNOTE POLL

btw everyone should click on the footnote thread why because it look intersting

When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean

did anyone go to the lancaster, pa CTY program in the late 90s? they played this song at the end of every dance and there was a call-and-response ting

AMERICAN PIE LYRICS POLL UGGHHHHH

I hate this song and want to die FTW

Yes.

guys i had to watch this in class

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycgegp0KdE4

For and what, whenever he sees this thread:

"And something touched me deep inside
The day Eddie Deezin died."

i don't think emo has anything on '70s singer/songwriter self-pitying tripe between this and cat's cradle and 'the innocent age' by dan fogerburp

something touched me deep inside
the day deeznuts died

my ap english teacher for real played this and "vincent" for us one day in class to show us no-good punx what real poetic lyrics were like.

Because fire is the devils only friend.
Oh and as I watched him on the stage,
My hands were clinched 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

Okay I have to admit this verse gave me the neckhair shivers as a girl BUT it's because the devil was THE SCARIEST THING OF ALL.

it's ok, the devil is apparently mick jagger

who, to be fair, is also a legitimate reason for a girl to get the neckhair shivers, but still.

Starry starry night
paint your palette blue and grey

look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the
darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils

catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry starry night
flaming flo'rs that brightly blaze

swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue
morning fields of amber grain

weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's
loving hand.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
but still your love was true

and when no hope was left in sight on that starry
starry night.
You took your life
as lovers often do;
But I could have told you
Vincent
this world was never
meant for one
as beautiful as you.

Starry starry night
portraits hung in empty halls

frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes
that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met

the ragged men in ragged clothes

the silver thorn of bloody rose
lie crushed and broken
on the virgin snow.
And now I think I know what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity

how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not
list'ning still
perhaps they never will.

what sort of angel is born in hell?

I hate this song and want to die

to be fair this song would be vastly improved if it actually included this line

I think they're added in the Madonna version, as is ngghngghghhghhhhh.

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry

Made me want to know what a 'chevy' and a 'levee' was. Therefore I vote.

...But she just smiled and turned away.

Best damn line here!

Voted "I saw Satan laughing with delight" because I'm evil. :)

Yeah, I remember having a 9th grade English class where the lyrics to "Vincent" were discussed. Other songs that came up over the course of the semester include "I Am A Rock" and "Little Boxes."

If you guys don't like this song, you should hear the Eddie Cochran song on the same theme.

Anyway, I voted for "February made me shiver" with "When I read about his widowed bride" the runner-up.

The fact that most people here hate this song makes me feel a little warmer and fuzzier about ILM.

I didn't like this song the first few dozen times I heard it but, like many extended length pre-Darkness On The Edge Of Town Bruce Springsteen tracks I was forced to listen to hundreds of times on late 70s and early 80s radio, I grew or found a way to like it so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

I was raised with my Dad playing this song on the piano at every opportunity. I love it when he plays, bum notes and stilted rhythm and mumbled lyrical uncertainties all. I hate the "original."

I hate this song and want to die

to be fair this song would be vastly improved if it actually included this line

Funniest thing I've read all day. Thanx Shakey Mo!

I actively loathe this song. If it was a person, I'd beat up its face. One would think that the years would have allowed some sort of camp appreciation by now. But nooooooo! No!!!!

I voted "Helter Skelter in a summer swelter" because The Brady Bunch started their version with that line (quel scandale!) thus proving them infinitely more intelligent than Don himself.

Runner up is "So..."

my poll - hating this song makes you:
- smart
- distinctive
- edgy
- carbon-based

A and D

Other songs that came up over the course of the semester include "I Am A Rock"

jesus my same english teacher played us "i am a rock" (he brought the album in to play us "richard cory" because we were doing edwin arlington robinson that week, and then threw in "i am a rock" because of its john donne association).

english teachers have a lot to answer for.

My friend had the lyrics to Lennon-McCartney's "The Word" in his English textbook. I'm jealous.

"A generation lost in space" for me.

And a curse on all y'all haterz!!!

Kevin (and anyone else that cares to answer): How do you feel about Maddy's version?

I take "The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost": Don McLean giving props to Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler. Surprising, that.

(I don't LOVE this song - the 7" of which I owned as a five-year-old & may still have lying around somewhere - but I can't hate it either. Sure, the lyrics are monumentally stupid, and it's too long and repetitious and sanctimonious, and it's gotten wayyy too much airplay, and etc. But fuck it, I just can't entirely discard songs that figured prominently in my childhood.)

Our English teacher made us appreciate "Blowing in the wind" by singing it and playing it with her guitar.

"todays word is "Sanctimonious""

Haha. Our fifth grade teacher made us sing "This Land Is Your Land." Despite this, I still have much love for the song, and Woody in general, though.

Oh, and CHEERS! for John J.'s and Ned's amended lyrics. (Eddie Deezen!!) But I take issue with this:

rhyming "step" with "step" = you're fired, mr shitty lyricist

Come on, Shakey Mo, be fair: the rhyme is "doorstep"/"more step" and that's the least pedestrian rhyme in the song (altho "bronkin' buck" is uh unique, at least). There's far shittier lyrics.

I like this song

Tho not as much as "Vincent"

"I know that you're in love with him, 'cos I saw you dancin' in the gym" is a pretty good couplet...

english teachers have a lot to answer for.

-- tipsy mothra, Thursday, 1 November 2007 04:33

;_;

How do you feel about Maddy's version?

Not her finest moment but far from the desecration people usually claim it as. And it is a desecration of the original so she gets points right there.

But I suppose ANY cover of "American Pie" sounds like a desecration.

any version, you mean. including the original.

Madonna's version was a crime against humanity

Damn, 8:31? I had forgotten just how long the damn thing was:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHkT2YfqHE4

And just in case y'all haven't suffered enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcokdvY0bFw

I'll bet you people like Weird Al's version.

is it called American Thigh

The chief pleasure of Maddy's version is that you just KNOW her electro wussbeats and slithering all over the video enraged people who really do think that 2/3/59 (or whatever the hell is it) was the day the music died, i.e. people who love Don's original. In fact, that's probably the ONLY pleasure in Maddy's version. But it IS a pleasure.

Best Don McLean story (and Don epilogue) by WFMU funnyman-creator of TV's Monk Andy Breckman:

http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/andy/americanpie.html

Archie Shepp is still alive, last time I checked

Madonna's American Pie vs. TLC's If I Was Your Girlfriend

The tour started like this: we were on the plane. McLean glanced out the window. he said he saw a shooting star. I said make a wish. He said "I did, but it didn't work. You're still here."

It was downhill from there. During the day, McLean complained constantly. He humiliated Ray, our tour manager. He mocked "lesser" singer-songwriters, like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. At night, he picked up young, woeful-looking Canadian folk groupies and brought them back to his room for what he called "dick autographs."

^^THIS IS AWESOME

I like how "dick autographs" is pretty much the only part of the story that Don's response doesn't address or object to.

Fourth: I never limited my "dick autographs" to only the young, or the Canadian.

more.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

chevy to the levee

but the groupie was dry

This song is what happens when you play madlibs with Dylan lyrics.

Speaking of English teachers, I had to grade a paper last year by a girl who analyzed these lyrics, apparently using a fan page as her major source, and she got into how this song is dense with religious symbolism and all other kinds of shit that some fan with a loose grip on Christian mysticism pulled out of their ass. Basically, she gave this song the sort of reading that only Paradise Lost should be subjected to.

And then I got depressed, because that's the sort of shit that would have blown my mind when I was her age.

Archie Shepp is still alive, last time I checked

Shepp is the son, Ayler was the holy ghost.

THE HOLY GHOST IS RED GRANGE, THE SON IS DICK BUTKUS

THE FUCK YOU THINK 'TOOK THE LAST TRAIN TO THE COAST' MEANS?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

confused

"Folk groupies" lol:

Jon Landau (Rolling Stone): What was the Simon and Garfunkel groupie scene like?

Paul Simon: Simon and Garfunkel had a peculiar kind of groupie. We had the poetic groupies. The girls that followed us around weren't necessarily looking to sleep with us as much as they were looking to read their poetry or discuss literature or play their own songs.

JL: How did you feel about that?

PS: I think that maybe that was the best thing for me, because to a great degree it embarrassed me to pick up somebody on the road, because it was so obvious that you weren't interested in them. I felt it was insulting. You obviously didn't care anything about the person if you were just picking them up to take them back to a Holiday Inn with you . . .

I wasn't interested in their poetry, either.

Don McLean's "American Pie" has ripped out of nowhere and taken the country by storm both in its album and truncated single versions. It took exactly two weeks to shoot to the top of the charts, everybody I know has been talking excitedly about it since first hearing, and, even more surprisingly, it has united listeners of musical persuasions as diverse as Black Sabbath and Phil Ochs in unbridled enthusiasm for both its message and its musical qualities.

All of which is not so surprising once you've heard it, because it is a brilliant song, a metaphor for the death and rebirth of rock that's at once complex and immediately accessible. For the last couple of years critics and audience alike have been talking abut the Death of Rock, or at least the fragmentation of all our 1967 dreams of anthemic unity. And, inevitably, somebody has written a song about it. About Dylan, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Janis and others. About where we've been, the rush of exhilaration we felt at the pinnacle, and the present sense of despair. Don McLean has taken all this and set it down in language that has unmistakable impact the first time you hear it, and leaves you rubbing your chin -- "Just what did that line mean?" -- with further listenings because you know it's all about something you've felt and lived through. A very 1967ish song, in fact, in the way it makes you dig for deeper meaning, but not the least bit mawkish.

It opens with a slow, mournful sequence abut reading the headlines about the deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper while delivering papers as a child, then into the chorus: "Bye bye, Miss American Pie/Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry/Them good ole boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye/And sayin' this'll be the day that I die." Then all at once it rears up and charges through the years in a giddy rush: "I was a lonely teenage bronckin' buck/With a pink carnation and a pickup truck," the "Book of Love," sock hops in the gym and puppy jealousy, and then into the heart of the myth, where Dylan is a Jester "in a coat he borrowed from James Dean," laughing at the king "in a voice that came from you and me."

The halycon days of Sgt. Pepper are brilliantly caught: "The half-time air was sweet perfume/As Sergeants played a marching tune," but suddenly the Jester is on the sidelines in a cast, the stage is taken by Jack Flash ("Fire is the devil's only friend"), and Altamont, the Angels and the despairing resentment the Stones left many fans pass in a dark panorama. Finally coming down to the levee again, where the good old boys are draining the bottles and talking as if it's all over, as they did when the plane bearing "The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost" fell and as they will again and again through the years. It's just the old Calvinist sense of impending apocalypse and perdition, but they're good old boys anyway and we can't resent them because we too "believe in rock 'n' roll/And (that) music can save your mortal soul." Because they're us.

"American Pie" is a song of the year, and its music is just as strong as those lyrics, propelled with special resonance by the piano of Paul Griffin, who played with the Jester when his myth was at pinnacle. If you've ever cried because of a rock & roll band or album, or lain awake nights wondering or sat up talking through the dawn about Our Music and what it all means and where it's all going and why, if you've ever kicked off your shoes to dance or wished you had the chance, if you ever believed in Rock & Roll, you've got to have this album.

- Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, 1-20-72.

Further reading on
Super Seventies RockSite!:
Single Review:
"American Pie"

Don McLean:
In His Own Words

"American Pie" FAQ

This first album for United Artists is a sensitive, lyrical collection of original material, the essence of Don McLean. "Vincent," a stirring plea for understanding of the work of Van Gogh, appears to be autobiographical in part. FM programmers should hear "Till Tomorrow," "Empty Chairs" and of course the title cut, "American Pie."

- Billboard, 1972.

The title cut is the great novelty song that may be about the death of rock and roll or may be about its refusal to die. The other material here indicates that McLean himself believes the former, but since it also indicates that he couldn't have composed "American Pie" -- he just took dictation from the shade of Buddy Holly, who must be taking some pretty strong drugs up there to make such a mistake -- you might as well judge for yourself. And do so like a real novelty-lover, by buying the single -- unless you're in the market for a song about how nobody understood Van Gogh. C-

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

Above McLean reviews from http://www.superseventies.com/mcleandon.html

ILX POLL VOTERS OTM

why do people hate this song so much?

"Why do pseuds pseudbash?"