I was listening to Pandora radio this morning while I was taking a shower. The song “American Pie” by Don McLean started playing, and I was singing at the top of my lungs. As the song went into the refrain, I was reminded of how I interpreted the lyrics to the refrain when I was younger. When I got out of the shower, I recounted the story to my husband, since I had never shared it with him before. It’s a cute story, at least in my opinion. It doesn’t involve a mondegreen in the strictest sense of the word. I didn’t mishear the lyrics, but rather interpreted them with my own definition.

I’m fairly certain that any music fan is familiar with “American Pie” and understands that it was inspired by the events of February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper J.P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash after a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. This day is known as “the day the music died”, which is also a line in McLean’s song. It’s one of my favorite songs.

I was 10 years old when “American Pie” was released in 1971. My older brother was a Buddy Holly fan, as I am now, so I was familiar with what the song was about. However, the chorus always confused me. I couldn’t figure out why McLean would be singing about a bar that my parents frequently visited.  Say what? I know now that he’s not singing about a bar, but it made perfect sense to me back then.

Let me explain. The chorus talks about driving a Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Well, the bar my parents went to was called “The Levee”, so driving a Chevy there was logical. And finding the levee dry was also logical. I just thought the bar was out of drinks. My grandfather owned a bar, so I knew at a very young age that people went to bars for drinking purposes. The next lines “Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing ‘this’ll be the day that I die’” followed my bar logic as well, as I knew that you got whiskey and rye at a bar, and that oftentimes people who drank too much would sing. It was a few more years before I realized that Don McLean was not singing about The Levee, the bar, but rather a river embankment that helps prevent flooding.

Now, for your listening enjoyment, Don McLean and “American Pie”. And remember, he’s not singing about a bar.