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Radio stations initially played the A-side of the song only, but soon switched to the full album version to satisfy their audiences. The song's eight-and-a-half-minute length meant that it could not fit entirely on one side of the 45 RPM record, so United Artists had the first 4: 11 taking up the A-side of the record and the final 4: 31 the B-side. The song debuted in the album American Pie in October 1971, and was released as a single in December. McLean used a 1969 or 1970 Martin D-28 guitar to provide the basic chords throughout "American Pie". While some have claimed other places, such as Saint Joseph's University, as where the song was first performed, McLean insists that the song made its debut in Philadelphia at Temple University when he opened for Laura Nyro on March 14, 1971. Tin & Lint, a bar on Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs, claims the song was written there, and a plaque marks the table. McLean claims that the song was only written in Cold Spring and Philadelphia.
Some employees at Caffè Lena claim that he started writing the song there, and then continued to write the song in both Cold Spring, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It has been claimed that Don McLean began writing "American Pie" in Saratoga Springs, New York, at Caffè Lena, but a 2011 New York Times article quotes McLean as disputing this claim. To mark the 50th anniversary of the song, McLean is scheduled to perform a 35-date tour through Europe, starting in Wales and ending in Austria, in 2022. In 2017, McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant". McLean repeatedly declined to explain the symbolism behind the many characters and events mentioned he eventually released his songwriting notes to accompany the original manuscript when it was sold in 2015, explaining many of these. The meaning of the other lyrics, which cryptically allude to many of the jarring events and social changes experienced during that period, have been debated for decades. However the overall theme of the song goes beyond mourning McLean's childhood music heroes, and reflects the deep cultural changes and profound disillusionment and loss of innocence of his entire generation – the early rock and roll generation – that took place between the 1959 plane crash and either late 1969 or late 1970.
The repeatedly mentioned phrase " the day the music died" refers to the plane crash in 1959 that killed early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens, and ended the era of early rock and roll this became the popular nickname for that crash. "American Pie" has been described as "one of the most successful and debated songs of the 20th century". Due to its exceptional length, it was initially released as a two-sided 7-inch single. The song also held the record for almost 50 years for being the longest song to reach number one before Taylor Swift's " All Too Well (Taylor's Version)" broke the record in 2021. At 8 minutes and 42 seconds, McLean's combined version is the sixth longest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 (at the time of release it was the longest). 1 in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. A truncated version of the song was covered by Madonna in 2000 and reached No. 5 song on the RIAA project Songs of the Century. In the UK, the single reached number 2, where it stayed for 3 weeks, on its original 1971 release and a reissue in 1991 reached No. The song also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Recorded and released on the American Pie album in 1971, the single was the number-one US hit for four weeks in 1972 starting January 15 after just eight weeks on the Billboard charts (where it entered at number 69). " American Pie" is a song by American singer and songwriter Don McLean. Don McLean's live performance on BBC, July 29, 1972 Artwork is also used as the front cover for the album of the same name and many other international releases of the single.