Talkin’ Music with Jack – Clear Lake Iowa

Clear Lake Iowa

 The Surf Ballroom

By Jack Coll

1-30-14

          “February made me shiver, with every paper I’d deliver.” We all know the line, most of us have sung it a million times, “Bad news on the door step, I couldn’t take one more step.”  Don McLean was a 15 years old paperboy when he went out on a cold February morning, cut his bundle of newspapers to wrap them and as he looked down he saw the headline declaring the death of Jiles Perry Richardson Jr., Richard Steven Valenzuela, and Charles Hardin Holley, along with the 21 year old pilot Roger Peterson.  Let’s try that again, J. P. Richardson the “Big Bopper,” Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly. (Without the “E” in Holly)  That line in the song is perfectly clear, Don McLean simply penned it as he remembered it.  The song we’re referring to is the classic “American Pie.”

Of course it has meaning this time of year, their plane went down on the morning of February 3, 1959.  Tune in to almost any radio station on that date and you’re sure to hear “American Pie” with the DJ giving you the 10 second version of what happened and another 10 second explanation of McLean’s song.  Rarely will you hear any radio station play a song from each artist back to back in their memory, which would be way too many seconds to waste on the radio.  Sometimes radio stations and DJ’s forget that artists like them made their job possible.

Setting The Stage

     Buddy Holly had left the Crickets behind in the fall of 1958 and ran into some legal problems.  This turn of events forced Buddy to join a six week tour with “The Winter Dance Party.”  Other artists on the tour just needed exposure and were touring to promote their records.  “Bopper,” Valens, Dion and The Belmonts and Frankie Sardo were the other artists along with Holly.

Holly was at odds with the two members of his band, “The Crickets.” The dispute occurred when the band finished a small tour and Holly wanted to go to New York to record some new records and the Crickets wanted to go back home to Lubbock Texas.  Holly formed a new band for the “The Winter Dance Party Tour” consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch.  The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in as many days.

The February weather was a kicker, the members of the “Dance Party” traveled thru the night from venue to venue in a bus that had no heat and frequently broke down.  At times the bus would break down in the middle of no-where in the middle of the night.  With no telephones in sight the bus would often be forced to wait for a passer-by to get help.  Long hours on the bus with no heat led to the performers getting the flu and passing it on to members of the band, Holly’s drummer was hospitalized due to frostbite.  The long hours on the bus in sub-zero temperatures at times was understandably frustrating with the amount of miles they covered.

Winter Dance Party Tour 1959 Dates

January 23-Milwaukee, WI

January 24-Kenosha, WI

January 25-Mankato, MN

January 26-Eau Claire, WI

January 27-Montevideo, MN

January 28-St. Paul, MN

January 29-Davenpart, IA

January 30-Ft. Dodge, IA

January 31-Duluth, MN

February 1-Green Bay, WI

February 2-Clear Lake, IA

(The final concert for Holly, Valens, and Richardson)

(Frankie Sardo and Dion & The Belmonts continued until the end of the tour.

Bobby Vee & The Shadows performed on the February 3^rd date.

Jimmy Clanton, Fabian and Frankie Avalon were substituted as headliners,

The Crickets finished the tour with Ronnie Smith as lead vocalist.)

February 3-Moorehead, MN

February 4-Sioux City, IA

February 5-Des Moines, IA

February 6-Cedar Rapids, IA

February 7-Spring Valley, IL

February 8-Chicago, IL

February 9-Waterloo, IA

February 10-Dubuque, IA

February 11-Louisville, KY

February 12-Canton, Ohio

February 13-Youngstown, Ohio

February 14-Peoria, Ill

February 15-Springfield, Ill

Most nights were spent sleeping on the bus, not in hotel rooms.

     By the time the Dance Party rolled into Clear Lake, Iowa the tour was nearly half over but the long nights on the bus had taken a toll on the members.  Holly’s band was the backing band for all the acts, when Holly’s drummer Carl Bunch was hospitalized in Ironwood Michigan for severely frostbitten feet, Holly, Valens, and DiMucci took turns playing drums for each other at the Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Clear Lake Iowa performances.  On Monday when the tour bus arrived at The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Holly was clearly frustrated with traveling in the bus and decided to charter a plane to take him to the next stop in Moorhead, Minnesota.  This would avoid the overnight ride in the cold bus and give him time to do laundry.

The Surf Ballroom commonly known as “The Surf” hosted many dance parties and small concerts back in the 1950’s and seated about 2,000 people at the time.  The building still stands today located at 460 North Shore Drive and has been designated as a Historic Rock and Roll Landmark and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in America back on September 6, 2011.

When the show opened Frankie Sardo and Dion & The Belmonts hit the stage.  Sardo was a “warm-up” act and Dion & The Belmonts had just hit the top forty on the Billboard Hits Chart with “Don’t Pity Me” and the band was pushing a new song called “A Teenager In Love,” a song that would hit number five on the charts just two months after the crash.

Richie Valens was a rising star, with two hits on the charts including “Donna” and “La Bamba.”  Valens set-list on the night of February 2, 1959 included, “La Bamba,” “Come on Let’s Go,” “Donna,” “Fast Fright,” and “Framed.”  J. P. Richardson, “The Big Bopper” took the stage on the final night and opened with “Chantilly Lace,” (Hellooooo Baby) and then went into “The Big Bopper’s Wedding,” he finished with “Witch Doctor” and “The Purple People Eater,” a song that had been a hit for Sheb Wooley six months earlier.  Buddy Holly was definitely the star of the show; he was the closer with the most stage time.  Buddy’s play list on February 2, in Clear Lake included:

1. 1.     Gotta Travel On
2. 2.     Salty Dog Rag
3. 3.     It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
4. 4.     Peggy Sue
5. 5.     That’ll Be the Day
6. 6.     It’s So Easy
7. 7.     Everyday
8. 8.     Oh, Boy
9. 9.     Early in the Morning
10. 10.  Rave On
11. 11.  Brown Eyed Handsome Man

(An old Chuck Berry tune)

A movie of Holly’s life was filmed in 1978, starring Gary Busey, the film depicts Holly, (Gary Busey) as being backstage on a pay phone, talking to his wife Maria Elena, on the night of February 2,  and then taking the stage, Holly’s character walks out on stage and says something to his band like, “we’re gonna change it up a little fellas, I was just talking to my wife and I’m feeling a little sentimental.” With that the band breaks into “True Love Ways” (a song that was a big hit for Peter and Gordon in 1965).  Sorry folks, that never happened, just Hollywood doing their thing.  Holly did talk to his wife before the show on the pay phone, as did Richie Valens, (Valens talked to his girlfriend or mother)   The same pay phone is still on display at the Surf Ballroom, but Buddy never played “True Love Ways” in Clear Lake.

The Airport, The Coin Toss, The Ride

     Holly chartered the plane, the plane was a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza 35 that sat three passengers and a pilot.  Carroll Anderson who owned the Surf Ballroom contacted Hubert Dwyer, owner of the Dwyer Flying Service.  Flight arrangements were made with a 21 year old pilot named Roger Peterson, cost for the flight was $36.00 per person.  One thing that was pretty sure was that Holly chartered the plane for the three stars on the tour including himself, Richardson and Valens.  At first Richardson declined and Valens had a fear of flying. So Buddy locked in Jennings and Allsup.  In a short amount of time things changed, one version had it that Richardson had contracted the flu, and asked Jennings for his seat on the plane, Jennings agreed.

The Coin Toss

Again, the movies show a coin flip taking place at a wind-blown snowy airport, that didn’t happen.  Any and all coin tossing took place at the Surf Ballroom dressing rooms and depending on whom you talked to there were three different versions of who tossed the coin, and who won and lost seats on the plane.

Valens could not stand the thought of another night on the bus traveling for the next 20 hours while Holly was in a heated hotel room relaxing.  So Valens asked Tommy Allsup for his seat on the plane and the two decided to flip a coin to decide the short plane ride to a hotel room at the tour’s next stop.  Bob Hale was a disc jockey with KRIB-AM and was emceeing the concert that night and flipped the coin in the ballroom’s side stage room just before Holly and Richardson departed for the airport.  Valens won the toss and seat on the plane.  Early on Dion was asked to join the flight and he declined stating that the $36.00 fee was a month’s rent for his parents apartment noting how hard they worked to come up with rent money every month.

Okay, let’s stay with coin toss for a minute.  As Bob Hale would later tell the story of the coin toss, he reported on the coin toss the following day to his listening audience and several other radio stations.  “The toss came at intermission right after Buddy made the call to hire the plane.  “The toss could not have come AFTER I left the ballroom, because Kathy and I said goodbye to the boys as Carroll Anderson left for the airport with the boys in his car.  Had I left before the coin toss, there would have been no way for me to have known about it!  Had I left ahead of time this discussion would not be taking place: there would have been no way for me to have reported or written about it.”

On the other hand Tommy Allsup claims to have flipped the coin deciding who went on the plane in his seat.  As Tommy tells it, “Buddy told me that he had to get his stuff out of the bus and would be right back.  Valens was signing autographs in the dressing room and when he was done, and the fans moved on, I met him at the door.  He again asked me if I’d give up my seat and I suggested flipping a coin.  He agreed and I flipped a 50-cent piece that I had in my pocket.  There was no one else around that witnessed the flip.  I still have the coin.”

The third version came from Dion DiMucci who only talked about the coin toss for a couple of weeks following the crash and then went silent on the issue for the next fifty years.  In 2009 Terry Stewart from the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame contacted Dion stating that there are still a lot of different versions of the coin toss going around and most of them don’t make any sense and asked Dion for a written account of what he remembered.  So on the 50^th anniversary of the crash, Dion spelled out what really happened that night, as Dion said, “Let the Rock ‘N’ Roll truth be known:

Five Facts About the Coin Toss And The Winter Dance Party in the words Of Dion DiMucci

Fact # 1   Buddy Holly chartered the plane just for the headliners, we were the ones making

                 the most money and therefore were the only ones that could afford the flight.

Fact # 2   Holly was only able to charter a plane with four seats which included the pilot’s

                 seat, there was not enough room for all four of us to fly, someone would have to

                 ride the bus.

Fact # 3   In a closed dressing room we flipped a coin to see who was going to fly, the Big

                 Bopper & I won the toss.  I then discovered that the flight would cost $36.00, the

                 exact amount of rent due monthly that my parents constantly argued about.  I said

                 to Ritchie “you go,” he accepted and took my seat.  We knew who was getting on

                 that plane when we left that dressing room that night, I am the only one that was in

                 the room where the coin toss occurred that lived past February 3^rd, 1959.

Fact # 4   It was a well known fact that Ritchie had a fear of flying, because of the plane that

                 crashed in his school playground when he was younger, killing some students.  His

                 manager had to convince him to start flying.

Fact # 5   I talked about all that happened for two whole weeks on the bus after the “plane

                 crash” because the tour continued until February 15 or so, 1959, everybody on that

                 bus heard exactly what happened.

“If all the people that said they flipped a coin with Buddy Holly to get a seat on that plane was true, they would have needed a 747.  There have been so many stories over the years that are nonsense, the guitar player on that tour actually opened up a bar in Texas named the “Heads Up Bar”…some bullshit thing like that—opportunism, pure and simple.  All the garbage about the coin flip, I don’t think it was important because flipping of the coin was never the deciding factor for my decision not to fly.  When I first heard about this barroom deal, and the selling of framed coins in memory of, I thought he had lost his mind.  This was very distasteful to me, I wrote a song called “BULLSHIT” I was pissed off.  It goes “I HEARD WHAT’S GOING ON DOWN SOUTH—I GOT A BAD TASTE IN MY MOUTH—DRINKIN AT THE HEADS UP BAR SALOON—TALKING TO A BIG HOT AIR BALLON’…ect.”

The Ride

     When the show ended, Carroll Anderson drove the three performers to the airport, Holly, Valens and Richardson.  The plane taxied out to the runway at approximately 12:55 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday February 3.  The weather report indicated light snow with a ceiling of 5,000 feet with winds from 29 to 37 mph with reports of deteriorating weather along the route, all indications were that Peterson never received the weather briefings.  The results from the investigation of the crash suggest that soon after the takeoff Peterson became disoriented due to the unfamiliar way the altitude  indicator in the aircraft functioned, combined with an inability to find a point of visual reference on a starless night with no visible lights on the ground.  Peterson lost control of the plane and the tip of the right wing hit the ground.  The airplane tumbled across the cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl.  The plane hit the ground at about 170 miles per hour, skidded another 570 feet across the frozen cornfield before the plane was stopped by a fence at the edge of Juhl’s property.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when Hector Airport in Fargo, North Dakota had not heard from Peterson, that Dwyer contacted authorities and reported the airplane missing.  It was Dwyer who went up in his Cessna 180 and flew Peterson’s intended route and within just minutes spotted the wreckage below just five miles from the Dwyer airport.  A sheriff by the name of Bill McGill responded to the site of the wreck and found the bodies of Valens and Holly near the plane.  Richardson’s body was thrown over a fence into the cornfield of Oscar Moffett, Peterson’s body was found among the plane’s wreckage.  Carroll Anderson, owner of the Surf Ballroom, who had driven the three musicians to the airport, identified the bodies, Ralph Smiley the county coroner declared that all four had died instantly from “gross trauma” to the brain.

Can You Believe It!

     Buddy Holly left behind a pregnant wife, (as did J. P. Richardson)  Holly’s wife Maria Elena, (the two were married just six months earlier) learned of Buddy’s death while watching television, she miscarried the following day, the miscarriage was attributed to “psychological trauma.”  Buddy’s mother who had heard the news of her son’s death on the radio collapsed at her home in Lubbock, Texas.

Because of Maria Elena’s miscarriage authorities in the months following implemented a policy against announcing victim’s names until family members are informed.  (you might notice that when watching the news today the reporter will often say at an accident site that “the names of the victims are being withheld until the victim’s families have been notified), that statement is, and was from the direct result from Holly, Valens, and Richardson’s plane crash and release of information to the press.

In The End

     Buddy Holly was buried on February 7, 1959, at the City of Lubbock Cemetery.  His pallbearers included Jerry Allison, Joe Mauldin, Niki Sullivan, Bob Montgomery, Sonny Curtis, and Phil Everly.  Buddy’s Headstone carries the spelling of his surname, “Holley.”  Buddy’s wife Maria Elena did not attend the funeral, and has never visited his gravesite.  In interviews in later years she blamed herself for his death stating that it was the only time she did not travel with him and if she had been there she knows that he would have never gotten on that plane.

Waylon Jennings who had a seat on the plane gave it up to J. P. Richardson who had contracted the flu, said the decision to give his seat to Richardson would haunt him for the rest of his life.  In a strange twist of fate, a well known documented fact is that when Holly learned that Jennings was not going to fly he said in jest, “Well I hope your bus freezes up,” Jennings responded “Well I hope your ol’ plane crashes.,” at the time they laughed, it was a humorous but ill-fated response, just two kids jawing back and forth.

When J. P. Richardson died he had a four year old daughter and his wife was pregnant with his son.  Richardson’s son was born in April of 1959 and named Jay Perry, or J. P. Richardson Jr.  Jay Perry took up a musical career and was known as “The Big Bopper, Jr.” and like his dad performed around the world playing on many of the stages his father did.  Years later Jay Perry approached the tour bus of Waylon Jennings, J. P. was invited on the bus, it was the first time the two men had met. As Waylon recounted in an interview “he looked just like his dad.”  The two men had talked, and Waylon had apologized for giving his seat on the ill fated plane to J. P.’s dad.  Jay Perry assured Waylon there was no need for an apologize, but was perhaps just looking for a little insight into his father’s final days, asking what kind of guy he was.

When Richardson died he was building a recording studio in his home, he had 20 songs written that he was going to record or have someone record for him.  Richardson was an accomplished guitar player and a pretty decent songwriter.  George Jones recorded Richardson’s “White Lightning,” which became Jones very first #1 Country Hit.  On a side note Richardson also wrote “Running Bear” for Johnny Preston, a good friend of Richardson’s from Port Authur, Texas.  (Port Authur, Texas was also the home of Janis Joplin)  Richardson sang background on “Running Bear”, although the song wasn’t released until after his death in September 1959, within months it also became a #1 song in the country.

Also interesting was the fact that the “Big Bopper” landed in the Guinness Book of World Records back in May of 1957 for breaking the record for the continuous on-air broadcasting.  Richardson performed for a total of five days, two hours, and eight minutes playing 1,821 records.

One final note on ‘The Big Bopper”, Richardson is credited for creating the very first music video in 1958, and also giving us an image of “The Big Bopper.”

Jay Perry Richardson, Bopper’s son died on August 21, 2013, and the age of 54.

Oh Donna

     Richie Valens entire recording career lasted only eight months, During that span he managed to record a number of hits including “La Bamba,” “Come On, Let’s Go,” and Donna.”  Richie made two appearances in Philadelphia on the Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” television show.  On October6, 1958 he sang “Come On, Let’s Go,” when he returned on December 27, he sang about his girlfriend “Donna.”

“Donna” reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song was written as a tribute to his high school sweetheart Donna Ludwig.  “Donna” was the flip side of “La Bamba,” and was his highest selling record.  Donna Ludwig married and today is Donna Fox.  Richie Valens was just 17 years old when he died.

As a side note from the song “Donna” it was long rumored that “Peggy Sue” was Buddy Holly’s girlfriend, not true.  Holly wrote the song and was going to call it “Cindy Lou,” as in “If you do, Cindy Lou, then you’ll know why I love you oh Cindy, my Cindy Lou.” However Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets was dating Peggy Sue Gerron, and asked Buddy if he could change it to “Peggy Sue,” not “Cindy Lou.”  Neither Allison or Holly figured any one beyond Lubbock, Texas would ever hear it and man Jerry could score some big time brownie points if it were changed to “Peggy Sue,” Holly gladly changed the name and the song.  Allison and Peggy Sue eventually got married but divorced 11 years later.

Buddy wrote a sequel called “Peggy Sue Got Married,” released many years after his death.  It inspired the 1986 movie “Peggy Sue Got Married” starring Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage.

Buddy Holly was 23 years old when he died.

How influential was Buddy Holly?  On September 7, 1994, what would have been Buddy’s 58^th birthday, the band Weezer released their single “Buddy Holly.”  The Beatles first recording was “That’ll Be The Day,” and let’s not forget about the Rolling Stones very first hit record, “Not Fade Away.”  The 1960’s band, “The Hollies” named themselves after Buddy.

Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney never saw Holly in concert they recorded many of his songs including “Words of Love,” “Mailman Bring Me No More Blues,” “That’ll Be The Day,” and John Lennon recorded a cover of “Peggy Sue,” among others.  And, by the way, the Beatles came up with their name because they wanted something with a bug, or as a bug, just like the Crickets.  Keith Richards watched Buddy in concert leading to the stones recording of “Not Fade Away.”  Bob Dylan was just 17 years old when he saw Holly in concert on January 31, 1959, just two days before his death.  Dylan refered to the event in his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for his album “Time Out of Mind,” being named Album of the Year.  Dylan stated, “And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him, and he looked at me.  And I just have some sort of feeling that he was, I don’t know how or why, but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.”

Today, Paul McCartney owns all of Buddy Holly’s music.

American Pie

     Following the songs, the influences, and the crash, Buddy, Richie and Bopper seemed to go away for a decade.  More than that, a day after the plane crash, Newspapers across the country screamed with big, bold, dark headlines:  

 Death Toll of 65 in New York Plane Crash

Eight Are Rescued from Icy Waters

Cause Is Unknown

Air Tragedies Take Heavy Toll, 124 Survive Plunge

And the world moved on, there were other tragedies, assassinations to come, equal rights and a war.  By the time the country settled back down in the early 1970’s, a Villanova University student was a struggling musician and while in Cold Spring, New York and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Don McLean wrote a song, and although he never mentions Holly, Valens or Bopper, everyone knew, everyone knew.  “A long ,long time ago, I can still remember when, the music used to make me smile.” American Pie was released in November of 1971, a dozen years after the crash, as McLean writes it, “The day the music died.”

“American Pie” is a curious song, long been debated and speculated on; McLean dedicated the album to Buddy Holly, and has said very little about the meaning of the song since.  When asked about the meaning of the song, , McLean gives a patented answer, When asked what “American Pie” meant, McLean replies “It means I don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to.”

This has left everyone else in the world to interpret the lyrics of the song.  We know the “Day the music died” refers to February 3, 1959.  But the rest of the lyrics are a mystery, let’s see:

“Helter Skealter in the summer swelter”

“Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levee was dry”

“When the jester sang for the king and queen”

     Does anyone really know what these lyrics mean, does anyone really know what the hell McLean’s talking about.  We have some idea’s, agree, disagree, it’s your choice but let’s take a crack at it.

Remember this, the song was written in 1970, and a lot of the lyrics are referenced to the 1960’s.

A long long time ago (McLean was 25 when he wrote the song, only 15 years

old when the crash happened, in that span it really was a long, long time ago)

I can still remember how

That music used to make me smile (referring to Buddy’s songs)

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And maybe they’d be happy for a while (playing and listening to Buddy’s music)

But February made me shiver

With every paper I’d deliver

Bad news on the doorstep

I couldn’t take one more step (the last four lines are self-explanatory)

I can’t remember if I cried

When I read about his widowed bride (Referring to Buddy’s wife)

But something touched me deep inside

The day the music died (February 3, 1959)

(Chorus)

So, Bye, bye Miss American Pie (American Pie has been interrupted as meaning

 A thousand different things, but America seems to be the favorite)

 Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry (refers to the three college

 students who were slain, and their story was the basis for the movie “Mississippi Burning”)

(Another interpretation insist that the Levee was a bar close to McLean’s house, he would go there

to drink with his friends, the bar closed down, hence “the levee is dry”)

Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey in Rye (young men getting ready to go off to war)

Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die (Because they’ve gone off to war)

This’ll be the day that I die (repeating the lyric “This’ll be the day that I die”

Is straight from Buddy’s song, “That’ll be the day when I die. That’ll be the day that I die.”

(“Well, that’ll be the day, when you say goodbye

Yes that’ll be the day, when you make me cry

You say you’re gonna leave, you know it’s a lie

Cause that’ll be the day when I die)

(That’s the tribute to Buddy)

Did you write the book of love

And do you have faith in God above

If the bible tells you so? (at that time the bible was always the truth)

Now do you believe in rock and roll? (cause in the 60’s everyone did)

Can music save your mortal soul?

And can you teach me how to dance real slow? (slow dancing at that time was all the rage)

Well I know that you’re in love with him

Cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym (In the late 50’s and early 60’s school sock hops in the gym,

 if you were slow dancing you were in love)

You both kicked off your shoes

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues

I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck

With a pink carnation and a pickup truck (Various meanings)

But I knew I was out of luck

The day the music died (when Buddy, Richie and Bopper died)

I started singin’

(Chorus)

Now for ten years we’ve been on our own (some say ten years since the plane went down,

others say since we became involved in Vietnam)

And moss grows fat on a rolling stone

But, that’s not how it used to be

When the jester sang for the king and queen (The jester throughout is Bob Dylan, who sang for Elvis and the queen)

In a coat he borrowed from James Dean (some say Dylan borrowed James Dean jacket,

Others say it’s because Dylan wore a leather jacket)

In a voice that came from you and me (referring to Dylan’s scratchy, folkie voice)

Oh and while the king was looking down (Elvis)

The jester stole his thorny crown(Bob Dylan is now the king of Rock N’ Roll

The courtroom was adjourned No verdict was returned

(referring to the assassination of John F. Kennedy

And while Lenin read a book on Marx (John Lennon)

The quartet practiced in the park (referring to the

Beatles final concert held at Candlestick Park)

And we sang dirges in the dark (Funeral songs often played at night time)

The day the music died (Buddy Holly died)

We were singin’

(Chorus)

Helter Skealter in a summer swelter (Charles Manson, Sharon Tate as she was killed in the summer))

The birds flew off with a fallout shelter Eight miles high and falling fast

(referring to the Byrds song “Eight Miles High”)

It landed foul on the grass (Buddy’s plane)

The players tried for a forward pass (Players referred to as the protesters)

With the jester on the sidelines in a cast (Dylan was in a motorcycle accident)

Now the halftime air was sweet perfume (of course weed, pot, dope Woodstock)

While sergeants played a marching tune (Sgt. Peppers, Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles)

We all got up to dance, (we wanted in, the dance was all the protest)

Oh, but we never got the chance (The government wouldn’t let us play, the cops shut it down )

Cause the players tried to take the field (When we tried to protest, “The Players” (government) wouldn’t allow us)

(also perhaps refers to the Kent State protest march when the students tried to move forward, the Ohio National Guard refused to yield and in the end killed four protesters)

The marching band refused to yield (Some say the marching band is the Beatles, but others say the government)

Do you recall what was revealed (could refer to Bob Dylan’s 1967 “The Ballad of Frankie Lee

And Judas Priest,” when the neighbor boy muttered underneath his breath, “Nothing was revealed.”)

The day the music died

We started singin’

(Chorus)

And, there we were, all in one place ( Woodstock )

A generation lost in space (The generation lost in space was the drug-using hippies of the 60’s)

With no time left to start again (no re-do’s, we couldn’t start the 60’s over)

So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick (Mick Jagger, “Jumping Jack Flash”

Jack Flash sat on a candle stick, cause

Fire is the devils only friend (various meanings)

And as I watched him on the stage

My hands were clinched in fist of rage (Stones concert in Altamont where Hells Angels

were the security guards, and stabbed a man to death)

No angel born in hell (reference referring to Hell’s Angles at Altamont)

Could break that Satan’s spell (People believed the Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil,

They dropped the song for the next six years from their playlist)

And, as the flames climbed high into the night (Some say Hendrix setting his guitar on fire)

To lite the sacrificial rite (the death of Meredith Hunter at the Stones concert)

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The day the music died

He was singing

(Chorus)

I met a girl who sang the blues (Janis Joplin)

And I asked her for some happy news

 She just smiled and turned away (Joplin died)

I went down to the scared store (Record Store)

Where I’d heard the music years before

 But the man there said the music wouldn’t play

And in the streets the children screamed (talking about the death of Holly, Valens, and Bopper

And all the rest of the rock icons that gave way to the 60’s, Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Brian Jones, Mama Cass, and all the rest)

The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed

But not a word was spoken

The church bells all were broken(at the time there was no long term grief,

 out-pouring from the public, the three were quietly buried and America moved on)

And the three men I admired most-

The father, Son and the Holy Ghost-(referred to as Buddy, Richie, and the Bopper)

They caught the last train for the coast (They left us)

The day the music died (February 3, 1959)

And they were singing

(Chorus)

Remember, this song has been misinterpreted for more than 40 years, for every line in the song there’s 40 different interpretations, what’s yours?

Here’s my interpretation!

     Don McLean wrote this song over a long period of time in both Philadelphia and New York.  In my mind this is the way it happened.  My man got drunk at the Levee Bar one night, and scratched out some lyrics, (There really was a Levee Bar in New Rochelle, where Don is from, now called the Beachmont.)  There is a plaque on one of the booths where it gives credit to McLean for writing part of the song in that booth.)  When he woke up with a hangover the next morning he un-doubtly looked at  the lyrics and said to himself, “What the hell is this” and put them aside.  I think he tied on another load in Philly, perhaps along the main line and scratched out another set of lyrics, woke up with the hangover and repeated what he said the first time.  Somewhere, somehow, someway he got the idea to put the two sets of lyrics together that he didn’t even remember writing, record it, and the world has been trying to figure it out ever since.

If you go on-line and check out the meaning of “American Pie,” there are thousands of pages dedicated on this topic.  Harvard grads and professors have torn this song down word by word and in some way interpreted this song to mean everything from the bible to the end of the world.  I think it’s just a song, it has a good beat, I like hitting the lyric and joining in with my head up, and voice raised, “DID YOU WRITE THE BOOK OF LOVE.” But I still think it’s just a song.

Just a Personal Note

     Years ago, I had heard that it was Dion DiMucci who had lost the “coin toss,” and his seat on the ill fated flight.  The first time I met Dion I was young and didn’t know there was still a thing with the whole incident and I just asked him about the coin toss in Clear Lake.  It was after a show at the Valley Forge Music Fair, me and another guy went around the back of the building to meet and talk to Dion, and of course snap a few photographs.  Dion came out and spent a little time with us, and then I asked him “The Question.”

He just looked at me, it was one of those looks, that I can only describe as, when you do something really, really stupid with your wife, and she gives you the “LOOK,” the no dialogue needed look, the look says, if you were in church and asked her for sex in the church, during mass, yea, that look.

I didn’t pursue the question, and I didn’t bring it up the following two times I was with Dion.  Well the one time I didn’t talk to him, I sang on stage with him at the Mann Music Center but didn’t talk to him.  (Ask Bob Frost about me singing with Dion)   I did chat with him when he performed at J C Dobbs nightclub, the club was once located at Third and South Street in Philly.  It was one of those shows where about a dozen people showed up, I don’t know why, but when the show was over I spent a few minutes talking with Dion, he of course didn’t remember me and I didn’t ask the question, I didn’t want to be bothered with “the look.”

Donna and I traveled across the country some years ago, one of our stops was in Lubbock, Texas.  The town has done a lot to memorialize Holly over the year’s, I visited the site of his childhood home, his high school and his grave.   I think visiting his grave brought it all home for me.  Buddy was a talent, a huge influence on rock and roll.  His plane went down on February 3, fifty five years ago, Buddy was 24 years old, Richie 17 years old, and Bopper was just 29 years old.

Come Monday morning, February 3^rd, maybe we can all take a moment, just a moment, look up, and remember the three young guys who were shooting stars, a bright light, if only for a moment.

Photo’s below include

Buddy Holly’s grave stone-City of Lubbock Cemetery.

Lubbock High School, where Buddy attended High School

A statue of Buddy at the Buddy Holly Plaza

Buddy’s childhood home-1606 39^th Street

And Jack with Dion, behind the Valley Forge Music Fair, where Jack asked the question, that we don’t ask!

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