Other interesting facts about "American Pie":

The original recorded version has 8:38 min. The single was split in 2 parts because the 45 did not have enough room for the whole song on one side. You had to flip the record in the middle to hear all of it. Disc jockeys usually played the album version at full length, which was to their benefit because it gave them time for a snack, a cigarette or a bathroom break.

In 1971, a singer named Lori Lieberman saw McLean perform this at the Troubadour theater in Los Angeles. She was so moved by the concert that her experience at the concert became the basis for her song "Killing Me Softly With His Song," which was a huge hit for Roberta Flack in 1973., covered by "The Fugees" in the '90.

In 2002, this was featured in a Chevrolet ad. It showed a guy in his Chevy singing along to the end of this song. At the end, he gets out and it is clear that he was not going to leave the car until the song was over. The ad played up the heritage of Chevrolet, which has a history of being mentioned in famous songs (the line in this one is "Drove my Chevy to the levee"). Chevy used the same idea a year earlier when it ran billboards of a red Corvette that said, "They don't write songs about Volvos."

While being interviewed in the 1980s, McLean was asked for probably the 1000th time "What does the song American Pie mean to you?," to which he answered, "It means never having to work again for the rest of my life."

Regarding the line, "The birds (Byrds) flew off from a fallout shelter," a fallout shelter is a '60s term for a drug rehabilitation facility, which one of the band members of The Byrds checked into after being caught with drugs.

The line "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Flash sat on a candle stick" is taken from a nursery rhyme that goes "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick." Jumping over the candlestick comes from a game where people would jump over fires. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is a Rolling Stones song. Another possible reference to The Stones can be found in the line, "Fire is the devils only friend," which could be The Rolling Stones "Sympathy For The Devil," which is on the same Rolling Stones album.

Another interpretation on this line: "Jack Flash sat on a candlestick, 'cause fire is the devil's only friend," this is a reference to the space program, and to the role it played in the Cold War between America and Russia throughout the '60s. It is central to McLean's theme of the blending of the political turmoil and musical protest as they intertwined through our lives during this remarkable point in history. Thus, the reference incorporates Jack Flash (the Rolling Stones), with our first astronaut to orbit the earth, John (common nickname for John is Jack) Glenn, paired with "Flash" an allusion to fire, with another image for a rocket launch, "candlestick," then pulls the whole theme together with "'cause fire is the Devil's (Russia's) only friend".