Salisbury News

Singer-songwriter Don McLean's original manuscript and notes to 'American Pie' have been sold at auction for $1.2 million.

McLean offered the wistful anthem that asks 'Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?' at Christie's on Tuesday. The name of the buyer was not released.

The 16 pages include the original working manuscript and typed drafts of the song, including tantalizing new details about the famous anthem.

In an interview published by Christie's auction house New York, where the manuscript was auctioned, McLean says American Pie is about 'heading in the wrong direction'.

'It is becoming less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.'

It has long been known that the song about 'the day the music died' refers to February 3, 1959, when rock n' roll icon Buddy Holly and fellow singers Ritchie Valens and J.P. 'Big Bopper' Richardson died in a plane crash.

The eight-minute-long song was released in 1971 and was a No. 1 U.S. hit for four weeks in 1972.

McLean, 69, a longtime Maine resident, says writing the song was 'a mystical trip into his past.'

The original manuscript also reveals a deleted verse, which was crossed out and never recorded, about music being 'reborn'.

It includes the lines 'I dropped to my knees and there I prayed and I promised him everything I could give.

'If only he would make the music live,' according to the Telegraph.

American Pie had a revival in 2000 when Madonna covered the song to promote the soundtrack to her flop film The Next Best Thing.

Despite the Queen of Pop describing the cover as 'something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing' in 2001, her version of American Pie became a global chart hit.

Christie's New York is estimating that the American Pie manuscript will sell for $1million to $1.5million.

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