I know a poet named Rob. He's likely in his 40s, wears Chuck Taylors, baggie pants and a wallet chain. He reads from tiny composition notebooks full of tiny print, cover to cover, about drugs, prostitutes and homelessness.
I don't know if he's as tall as his words. It doesn't matter to me.
One night he read about accidentally – and drunkenly – urinating on the man next to him in the men's room of a tavern. When he looked up, he discovered the man was Don McLean.
Don McLean, you may know, if you've spent more than 10 minutes in your life with someone who owns an acoustic guitar, has written two songs in his life: "American Pie" and the full of music he's penned.
"American Pie" is a mourning of the plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, that killed Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. There was so much young musical talent that ceased to be that day, it's been called .
You'll have the opportunity to read dozens, if not hundreds of tributes today. I won't bore you with a retrospective, since I wasn't there for the plane crash, the '60s, or the appearance of "American Pie," which I remember hearing on vinyl for the first time (in fact, it was a 45-rpm, and the song was split onto both sides). Instead, here's Mr. Mclean:
December 26th, 2009 at 09:06
From
AL:
IS THAT “MUSIC DIED” THING THE ABSOLUTE WORST CLICHE IN ALL OF POPULAR CULTURE OR WHAT?
DOUG:
SERIOUSLY. I MEAN MUSIC DIDN’T DIE BUT FLOURISHED SINCE THAT PLANE WENT DOWN 50 YEARS AGO.
AL:
YEAH, IT’S NOT LIKE WITHOUT HOLLY, VALENS, AND THE BIG BOPPER THAT THERE WAS NO ELVIS, NO WALL-OF-SOUND, NO BEATLES NO STONES NO LED ZEP …
MIKE:
OR NO BIG STAR, NO RAMONES, NO DOLLS, NO TELEVISION, NO BOWIE, IGGY …
DOUG:
NO CLASH, NO PISTOLS, NO JOY DIVISION, NO SIOXSIE, NO NIRVANA, NO WEEZAH …
AL:
NO MARLEY, NO TOSH, NO LEE PERRY
DOUG:
YEAH, OR NO HIT MAKAHS LIKE THE DONNA SUMMAH, THE BEE GEES, MICHAEL JACKSON, MADONNA …
MIKE:
NO RUN-DMC, NO PUBLIC ENEMY, NO N.W.A., NO JAY-Z ?
DOUG:
IT’S LIKE THIS — SAYING “THE MUSIC DIED” WITH BUDDY HOLLY IS LIKE SAYING THE VIDEO GAMING INDUSTRY DIED WHEN ATARI DISCONTINUED PONG.
December 26th, 2009 at 09:07
Phil,
Yeah, I saw the Soxaholic link, and I have some thoughts (of course).
No, music did not stop after that plane crash, and the reference to the “day the music died” is obviously a romanticized notion that really exploded because of an epic tune (which may itself be proof of the paradox).
But anytime a young performer dies, we do lose something musically. Buddy Holly, for example had his own style; maybe Marshall Crenshaw is the only one carrying that particular torch.
When Jim Morrison died, he had lots of imitators, but no replacements, and so yes, a particular style of music died with him.
The same might be said for Ritchie Valens, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain.
The other big cliche here — and it’s not just music-related — is that we things don’t seem to matter to us as much unless they happened some multiple of 5 years ago, and this being the 50th anniversary of that particular crash, well, we’re at overload on it.