Bye, bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove a block to that shop
With the liquor inside.
Singing, "Gin and juice,"
Drinking whiskey and rye,
Thinking, "This'll be the day that I..."
The night the music died,
There were flashes of massive
Plane and stock crashes --
Flower baskets and caskets.
AIG and BIG and CIG,
Red ashes
From the burned-down Baptist church
Where a little black fist never got
Raised in the light of today's practice:
Supposed post-blackness.
The night the music died,
We burned all the classics.
Onto one last disc of
Bright blue plastic:
Johnny Cash hits and a
Rapper-slash-actress,
More powerful than two Cleopatras.
The night the music died,
All so tragic,
Then something else happened
And we all got distracted --
Something so dramatic
For however long it lasted.
We were saddened and ecstatic,
Saying, "Michael," and imagined, then...
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie,
Miss Educated-by-these-terrible-lies,
Age twenty-seven with a wink in her eye,
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die."
She cried, "I'm bored."
Said, "Yeah, you're starting to bore us.
You've never gone this long without a chorus."
The night the music died,
We expected a performance.
We waited;
The parade never came around our corners.
The coroner's report was a song by a foreigner --
A man who learned the slang
Before he ever crossed the border.
He learned all he knew
From off a four-track recorder.
"Don't mourn her," he said,
"Life should be four minutes or shorter,"
He sang,
"Bye, bye, Miss American Pie.
Took a cab to the lab, but it didn't arrive.
Shotgun blast, both hands to the sky,
Singing, 'This'll be the day that I...'"
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...
One time at band camp,
Drove this Trans Am,
She could fly.
Traded her for a foreign car,
Kept in storage, parked,
Till the tires got deflated --
No air like Jordin Sparks.
Stripped and sold for her parts,
Like porn stars to keep shades worn in the dark,
Like Corey Hart.
What's she got under the hood?
Let's take a look-see.
What's going on in the hood?
What's good, B?
Well, what seems good ain't
Always good,
And what's really good ain't all
That it could be.
I find the game too bush-league,
They rhymes is lame,
My mind's the same
As Usain's foot speed.
And that pushed me off the beaten trail,
Like a runaway slave on some underground
Via Rail,
'Cause we still feel them beats,
But I don't mean for real.
I mean, we still feel them beats --
We were beaten well.
I mean, look how we're still scared
To be ourselves.
Can't speak out,
And I don't mean that we need a cell.
And by a cell, I don't mean jail,
I mean, hell,
We locked up in these banks,
Keep us even bail.
I don't mean to speak this real,
But, like, damn...
I don't mean to sound depressed,
But I am.
The night the music died,
It slept with a fan,
Put her breasts in his hands,
And said, "Never sing for less than a grand."
Bang.
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my Chevy to the levy -- Nope.
Guess the levy broke.
This'll be the day that I die.
Guess you never know.
Dropping acid rain from the sky
In a deadly dose.
The night the music died,
They played something beautiful
To drown out the rain and the refrain
From the funeral.
Look: Wayne's in the studio
And the Saints win the Super Bowl.
It's a different crowd this time around
In that Super Dome.
A storm's brewing;
I can feel something's not right.
Writing old Prince lyrics,
Something about pop life.
Everybody needs a thrill --
Some entertainment,
Some Richard Pryor, ushering,
And no blaming all the products of the products
Made of pop cans and Pop Tarts,
And pop charts and all-stars,
And doll parts and stock cars,
And Wal-Marts with shop carts,
And ballparks with playoffs,
And day jobs with layoffs,
Between fading soft...
The night the music died,
Nobody investigated it --
Just another one of us
Laying on the Vegas Strip.
They closed the casket and the case up quick.
And never gave a...
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie.
If we've got good elections or hope,
And we keep our confessions up home.
If we've got good connections up home;
We've got good corrections up home.
America and Jesus --
The future is here.
If we've got all the weapons of hope
Aimed in all directions up home.
We've got good professions up home.
We've got good erections up home.
America don't need Jesus --
The future is here.