American Pie lyrics (with missing verse) go for £800k

THE original lyrics to one of pop’s most timeless and enigmatic hits were sold at auction yesterday for £800,000.

Don McLean had the 16 pages of handwritten notes and typed drafts for his 1971 masterpiece American Pie in a box at his home and said he was selling them to inspire young songwriters to think about every word in a song.

They reveal a ‘lost verse’ which McLean left out of the final recording because, he now says: ‘I was trying to go in different directions to see if anything spoke to me. That section didn’t.’ American Pie has long puzzled fans with its cryptic cast of characters including a jester, thought to refer to Bob Dylan, and a king, thought to be Elvis Presley.

Previously, when asked about the eight and a half minute song’s meaning, the US singer and songwriter replied: ‘It means I don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to’ – although it is known the famous line ‘the day the music died’ refers to the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly. In the omitted verse, McLean appears to be praying for the music to be reborn.

Interviewed for the catalogue for the auction at Christie’s in New York 69-year- old McLean says American Pie is a ‘morality’ song which describes his fears about the decline of America since the 1950s.

‘There is no poetry and very little romance in anything any more, so it is really like the last phase of American Pie,’ he said.

‘Basically in American Pie things are heading in the wrong direction.’

The buyer of the lyrics has not been disclosed.