"American Pie" is a folk rock song by American singer-songwriter Don McLean. Recorded and released on the American Pie album in 1971, the single was a #1 U.S. hit for four weeks in 1972. A re-release in 1991 did not chart in the U.S., but reached #2 in the UK. The song is a recounting of "The Day the Music Died"—the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.). The song was listed as the #5 song on the RIAA project Songs of the Century. "American Pie" is Don McLean's signature song.

- The song is well known for its cryptic lyrics that have long been the subject of curiosity and speculation. Although McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Buddy Holly, none of the musicians in the plane crash are identified by name in the song itself. When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean replied, "It means I never have to work again." Later, he more seriously stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me.... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."

- McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song lyrics ("They're beyond analysis. They're poetry.") except to acknowledge that he did first learn about Buddy Holly's death while folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 3, 1959 (the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"). He also stated in an editorial published on the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2009 that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death.

-The third verse begins "Now ten years we've been on our own".] According to one interpretation much of the rest of the song refers to events of the 1960s, particularly illustrating how once unified, peaceful, and idealistic youth movements (see Hippie) began to split apart, how the death of JFK was used by as the symbolic "loss of innocence" for 1960s youth, leading up to the Altamont Free Concert, a symbolic end of 1960s youth movements.

-The concert at Altamont took place in December 1969, the same year in which the third verse in American Pie opens. Lines from American Pie, particularly in the fifth verse, may refer to this event. It was supposed to be a second Woodstock Festival, but instead was characterized by drugs and violence.[ (Reference the death of 18 year old Meredith Hunter.) Sociologist Todd Gitlin says of Altamont, "Who could any longer harbor the illusion that these hundreds of thousands of spoiled star-hungry children of the Lonely Crowd were the harbingers of a good society?". Given the year the song was released, the date suggested in the third verse, and the themes of loss of innocence that exist throughout the song, embodied by Holly's death, it is not unlikely that American Pie was inspired by the events at Altamont, although McLean has never indicated so.

- Many American AM and FM rock radio stations released printed interpretations and some devoted entire shows to discussing and debating the song's lyrics, resulting in both controversy and intense listener interest in the song. Some examples are the real-world identities of the "Jester", "King and Queen", "Satan", "Girl Who Sang the Blues", and other characters referenced in the verses. Also Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper could be referred to as "The Father, Son, and The Holy Ghost." These three figures could also represent JFK, RFK, and MLK or the three remaining Crickets, Buddy Holly's group

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