Don McLean's "Everybody Loves Me, Baby"

An-other thing I noticed while listening to American Pie this morning is the Biblical references in "Everybody Loves Me, Baby."  I think I'd noticed "Yes, and the ocean parts when I walk through" before, but "The Angels guide my every tread" was new to me.

At first, I was just going to write a post about, "Hey, there are Biblical references," but then I got thinking about them some more and realized that neither of those Biblical references are strictly correct.

McLean's song has "The Angels guide my every tread," but in the Bible, it's "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.  On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone" (Psalm 91:11-12).  The same slight error is present in "the ocean parts when I walk through."  In Exodus, it's the Red Sea that parts, not an ocean:  "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided" (Exodus 14:21)

I think both of these speak to the hubris of the singer/speaker of the song.  He's trying to impress a girl, so he exaggerates these things.  It's not merely that the angels guard him; they guide him.  And he doesn't have just a sea parted for him; he parts the ocean himself.

Don McLean's "American Pie"

This morning I listened to Don McLean's American Pie.  I was really into this album when I was in high school, and I read a lot of things that tried to interpret the title track.  McLean himself hasn't said much more than that it's about Buddy Holly (whom the album is dedicated to).  Listening to it this morning, I realized that there's a lyrical reference that sort of indicates this.  I think I never noticed it before just because it's a similarity in phrasing from one of Holly's songs; it doesn't have anything to do with the intricate web of references that almost calls out to be interpreted.

The chorus ends with the line "This'll be the day that I die," which is very similar to Holly's "That'll be the day when I die" from "That'll Be the Day."