If it is possible, the story of the song and its legend may be bigger than the song.
This is Episode 12 of Caffe Lena: 60 Years of Song. Thank you to Sarah at the Caffe for compiling the list of artists and songs.
Legend has it that while drinking, McLean wrote the lyrics to "American Pie" on a napkin at bar just down from Caffe Lena, where he'd performed earlier that night. The story, which has been retold countless times is that McLean passed out and his buddies saved his napkin to return to him. For years, Don McLean has refuted the story stating he wrote the song in Philadelphia. Still the story and the legend persist.
Don McLean, indebted to Lena Spencer for urging him on as a young songwriter, returned to the Caffè through the early ‘70s even when "American Pie" was a hit record all over the world. He performed multiple benefits for Lena. In 1973, McLean gave Lena the ultimate gift: he invited her to be his special guest at the GRAMMY awards.
Students at Williams College, the band known as Darlingside had a songwriting class instructor who quoted a British writer, teaching the class to "kill your darlings," where in a favorite line, lick or riff (a darling) might compromise the song as a whole. The name Darlingside became their homage to "killing one's darlings."
Their songs grapple with things like nostalgia and the exuberance of youth to dystopian realities and uncertain futures. To see this band is to enter a full body experience. It's not just audience and band - all are one.
Caffe Lena: 60 Years of Song, a production of WEXT Radio.