Saturday, March 14, 2009

American Pie

We  have a Mp3-player in the car that automatically turns on when you start the car (broadcasting on an FM channel to the radio but that's all technical stuff I leave to the Husband to configure). It has a peculiar setting - when you turn off the car and thus the Mp3-player - the next time you will turn on the car it will start the song it was playing from the start. 

See the interesting thing about this? Well, if you drive really short distances - you'll end up hearing the same song every time you drive... And the last couple of days it has happened to me... I have only been driving to the eye doctor when I was in a rush, to the store to buy loads of milk, to pick up the Daughter in school - all pretty short distance - not long enough for the current song to end. 

The song happened to be American Pie by Madonna. And the more I listened to it, I became a bit confused about the lyrics. Since I'm not native English speaking, I can tune out the words and just enjoy a song (and only later realize the strange lyrics - or very banal lyrics for that matter). 

So I decided to look it up and found the video on YouTube - and the person posting it must have had the same issues with the lyrics because it was actually published as more info on the YouTube website. 

I'm not sure I'm following it any more after reading along  - but since it is (I think) about the US and lots of American flags (but no pies) I decided to post it. 

Here it is: 


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was written and made famous by Don McLean in 1971 and is about a famous airplane crash in 1959 that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and other musicians. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pie

-göran gustafsson

Anonymous said...

Yes, to better understand the song you can listen to the original Don McLean version, and then read some of the web pages linked under "interpretation" in the Wikipedia article (from Göran's comment). It's actually a very fascinating and historically important song.

The original version of the song is very long. Radio DJs used to play it when they needed time to take a washroom break.

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1193

JaCal said...

Göran - yes I do recall ealier versions before Madonna's cover - but didn't really know the more complex background to the lyrics - interesting! After hearing the lyric for days I was really wondering. I find it interesting that some verses were missing in Madonna's cover version. I got to look up the full lyrics. Thank you for the link and your comment!

Jessica - Yes, that's the version I remember before Madonna's cover. I've clicked forward from Wikipedia - interesting!! I don't know the length of Madonna's cover from the original - but it was long enough for my short trips around our little city... ;-) If I would have had the original that's probably the only song I would ever hear when driving! ;-) Thanks for the link and the comment!!

Anonymous said...

Varför kör du så mycket korta sträckor? Funderat på att gå någon gång?

JaCal said...

Anonym - ;-) Tänk jag undrade just vem (svensk...) som först skulle kommentera den aspekten av posten och ha synpunkter... Jag går helst och gärna och ofta - i den mån det faktiskt går att gå till de ställen jag ska till. Tyvärr är det ju inte alltid så om man inte bor i en storstad, varken här i USA eller i Sverige för den delen heller - utan måste ta sig mellan olika delar med andra transportmedel än apostlahästar eller cykel. Men som jag skrev i min post så har det de senaste dagarna av en slump råkat bli så att jag varit tvungen att köra ganska korta sträckor - för långa för att gå, för korta för att en ny låt skulle börja hinna spelas. Så kan det bli vissa veckor - det tror jag är högst normalt. Och en sträcka som tar 5 minuter med bil på en 110-väg tar ju ganska mycket längre att gå... ;-)