random thoughts on Don McLean

yesterday we discussed in great detail the song American Pie, which got me thinking that Don McLean was dead, because this video on Youtube began associating him with Buddy Holly and Richie Sambora, both of whom died in a plane crash. i began believing that Don McLean was on that plane with them too.

then i started to believe that it couldnt have been Don McLean, solely based on the fact that perhaps the time frame doesnt really make alot of sense.

but then again, why the hell would there be such an association, if not for the fact they MIGHT have died together on that plane?!

but the nagging feeling that is wasn't right just kept coming back; Don McLean's too young compared to buddy holly.

finally. i couldnt take it anymore. i wiki-ed it.

Holly began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper". Two nights after a performance in Duluth, Minnesota, the three headliners gave their final show, at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959. Afterwards, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch, and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota. Carl Bunch missed the flight as he had been hospitalized for frostbite three days earlier. The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he was recovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens was still signing autographs at the concert site when Allsup walked in and told him it was time to go. Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat. Allsup lost.

The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:55 A.M., but crashed after only a few minutes. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. Holly's body had been thrown from the wreckage and hit a tree, nearly decapitating him. While theories abound as to the exact cause of the crash, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board (one of the predecessors of the Federal Aviation Administration). Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport, killing 65. Don McLean referred to it as "the Day the Music Died".

the link, finally. :)

happy new year eveyone.

the day the music died.