Photo: JeremyWestby, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In Don McLean’s classic American Pie, the lyrics “the day the music died” refer to which event?

Don McLean’s American Pie’s “the day the music died” refers to Feb. 3, 1959, when a single-engine plane carrying musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jiles P. Richardson, crashed into a cornfield north of Clear Lake, Iowa, killing the three and their pilot. “The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie,’” streams on Paramount+ starting July 26, 2022.