Don McLean’s American Pie original manuscript to fetch $1.5M

The Don McLean song titled American Pie /4/have been expurgated. At least that is what some of the recent evidence that has come to the light of day suggests.

Everybody has heard that classic golden oldie song by Don McLean titled American Pie which has had many renditions since its debut way back in the good old days. Even Madonna was not averse to a parody. Indeed, it seems there came a day when the music died in America as a whole.

Don McLean’s beautifully memorable lyrics alongside the lilting music makes one want to listen to this one song from among millions again and again. It is addictive and literally haunts you.

But apparently, Don McLean wrote it down in the rough and then transferred it onto legal typing paper. There is also a missing verse that /4/have made the tenor of the otherwise pessimistic song more optimistic.

America is not necessarily as dark a place as portrayed in the song. The verse has lines crossing it out and that is where the enigma begins. Thus we will never really know if the song had a happy ending after all. 

Recently when the original typewritten script of the song was being auctioned, the deleted verse came up out of the blue and caused a furore. This auction took place in The Big Apple on Tuesday. Mclean’s original manuscript is expected to fetch $1.5 million at auction. 

“Basically in American Pie things are heading in the wrong direction,” McLean said in an interview, according to Telegraph. “It [life] is becoming less idyllic. I don’t know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”

The song basically goes into various subtexts and contexts having to do with race, politics and war in America. Everything from the civil rights riots to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Vietcong are explored in their panoply of horrors.

What Don McLean meant by the song was that instead of peace, love and brotherhood being the watchwords, in the US it was all about size, according to Telegraph. Size was everything and all the traditions and best things in life which by the way were free were left far far behind.

Small is beautiful and greed is a bottomless pit. It is a moral song that affirms that heart and soul are what matter in the end and not the size of your bank account or the size of your wife’s boobs.

What it mirrors is the fact that it is all going to the dogs and betterment would require a 180 degrees turn in the right direction. Now conspiracy theorists have had a field day with Don McLean’s song since it plays upon words and goes into subtle and mysterious meanings.

But on the whole all that is there to gaze at (or listen to) is the damage, danger, devastation and dread that is present in an otherwise great nation with lakes of butter and mountains of wheat ready to be processed into fast food.