American Pie

[thebes]

Chuck, can't argue with that. Thought it would be fun but maybe your right and there weren't enough of us around to play with it all weekend.

[WMcD]

Well . . . after some reconsideration . . . I declare American Pie a MASTERPIECE.

There are artistic allusions to the music which displaced that of earlier days. It also reflects the turmoil of the times.

I will not say that all elders then were like Edith and Archie. However, most living Americans had come through the Depression and The War. Then there was the '50's and Korea, and the cold war.

My guess was that the late '50s and early '60s were a type of despirately needed relief. Time to raise some normal kids.

However, the baby boomer generation came to age just when Viet Nam, drugs, civil rights wars, feminism, assinations of political and social leaders, free love?, came to the fore. I dare say that these eclipsed the nusances of bobby soxers and beatnicks. Young people were in the streets . . . and many people of all ages.

In my view, this was more turmoil in American than had been seen in the memory of anyone living. For the elders, it came just when things had calmed down. So they were puzzled; and could offer no solutions.

The baby boomers had no foundations in the past so they didn't know what to make of it either. American Pie describes this. Don was a few years ahead. In later years, the music died on the sidewalk outside the Dakota.

Historians will write about the aftermath. New cultures of youth arose. Call this an echo down though the ages.

Genearlly, I dunno if any of the above was "new". Armchair philosphers are fond of saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." This annoys me because it shuns analysis and appreciation.

My guess is that in the last 50 years there has been an issue introduced for young adults. At some time in the past they passed into the shoes of older people with a short, measured ramp-up. Dad's blue collar job, or out of college into the business world.

Now there is a long appreticship in flipping burgers or graduate school forever. Sometimes both. Gen X and Gen Y didn't suffer the normal, short coming of age. Rather, they got stranded. It is little wonder that there is an entrenched counter culture.

I've said enough.

Gil

[thebes]

A masterpiece with a catchy tune too!

I won't reinterate what I just posted about musicians becoming poetry in Ray's other Pie thread, but I do want to echo your own appreciation for this song.

Some music I like just for the music and could care less what the words are, or mean. Some songs, like this, I listen to for the words.

Nice post Gil.