The award-winning singer-songwriter-guitarist who was included into the 'Songwriters Hall of Fame' in 2004, revealed that 'I invented the term American Pie, which is my invention. I was talking about what I had seen really in the 60s.' There was also this background information about my life, the life of the nation and me really as an observer because I didn't hit any kind of stardom until the early 70s. Suddenly it all came together, there was this desire to know about the lyrics of the song, which they were now getting. A whole lot of stuff came up and that did it. 'At one point I said look, we just have to sit down and talk about the lyrics, starting from the beginning. They started making this movie and I started remembering more and more little details.' We really started to take a deep dive into this song and jogging my memory trying to remember so many things that were going on. 'As we started making this documentary, it was really based on the 50th anniversary of the release of the 'American Pie' album. He was going to do a Broadway show, a children’s book ('American Pie: A Fable'), a bookazine and a documentary movie,' he said.

'The documentary was part of a package of things that Spencer Proffer, whose company is the producer of the movie, said that he would do two years ago when the pandemic started. In our Zoom interview with McLean, he explained why he did this documentary.

The 76-year-old 'American Troubadour' reveals more of the story behind the song in a new documentary, 'The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean's American Pie' which is now streaming on Paramount+. Now more than 50 years later, the song has become a classic and has been a favorite as well of other singers from Garth Brooks to Madonna.

Richardson when they were killed in a plane crash in 1959. LOS ANGELES - Don McLean was only 26 years old when he wrote 'American Pie' to pay tribute to his rock and roll idols Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and 'The Big Bopper' J.P.

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