h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Despite McLean's claim that the song means whatever you want it to, some lines must have been deliberate. For example, the line "The birds flew off to the fallout shelter, eight miles high and falling fast". Can it be a coincidence that a group called The Byrds released a record called "Eight Miles High"?

I think Don McLean's realsied that if he doesn't explain what it's about, then people will carry on discussing it, the profile will remain high,m his stuff will keep getting re-released and bought, American Pie will be covered a lot, and he gets some nice dough out of it.

He was definately writing about the death of American Music with the death of Bucdy Holly but what about the reference to Lenin? I saw him in concert many many many years ago as a headliner to Laura Nyro. Although he played a tune which is forever imbedded in my head, Laurk was the true artist on the stage. He was merely a piece of fluff!!

In the phrase

"I took the Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry"

I know a Chevy is a car, but what's a levy: a petrol station?

American Pie's a good movie as well.

i thinka levee's some kind of reservoir, isn't it? I'll go and look it up...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=levee

Seems to be an embankment or dam from the look of the entries on dictionary.com

Thanks that's been bugging me for ages, but I didn't know the right spelling so I couldn't look it up.

The Levee is as reservoiu. He may have beenreferring to the local gravel pit which contains water. I don'dt know, just grappeling! K

Levee - a bank of earth or wall built anong the bank of a river to prevent flooding. Usually associated with the Mississippi basin.

How about his interpretation of 'Drove my chevvy to the levee but the levee was dry'

I thought it would be the end of the world but nothing happened.

I remember it the first time round!

It's Lennon wrote a book on Marx, as in Groucho!!

"Drove my Chevy to the levee , but the levee was dry"

Chevy refers to a brand of cars and pickup trucks. That was tremendously popular in the sixties and early seventies.

Driving to the levee to watch boats on the Mississippi river while drinking, flirting etc. is something just about everyone here has done as a teenager at one time or another. When the levee is dry it is the same as a dried out river bank...not much to see and pretty desolate.

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/coastline/coind25.htm

Led Zeppelin song: "If it keep's on rainin', the levee's goin' to break"

Levee rhymes with chevvy, a good reason to include it in a song. But "The Levee" was apparently also the name of the pub that McLean used to hang out in.

Since "the quartet" is generally accepted as The Beatles, it seems reasonable that it is Lennon and not Lenin mentioned in the same sentence.

The way this thread is going, a new title may be 'Life, the Universe and Everything - the McLean version'.

Lennon, or Lenin?

Lennon, not Lenin. Pay attention!

I've listened to it, but to me, it could sound like either...

So who are the father son and holy ghost?

The three men he admires the most

Justin, see posting 32.

I've just listened to it and it's definently:
"While Lenin read a book on Marx,
The quartet practised in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died..."