Texten och förklaringen är hämtad från Explain The Lyrics.
A long, long time ago… I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance,
That I could make those people dance,
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver,
With every paper I’d deliver,
Bad news on the doorstep…
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside,
The day the music died.
Comments: “That music used to make me smile” very much represents the happier optimism of the 1950s in America. He also identifies Buddy Holly by the month of his death (February) and the “widowed bride” he left behind. Holly’s passing had a profound effect on McLean: as it will become clearer in the next verse, this music and the simple innocence and optimism of it has its corollary in the psychology of America in the fifties, so that the day the music died becomes the day the innocence and optimism died – blow number one. McLean delivered papers as a boy.
