Little Hawk: I, too, certainly don't think that music died with the plane crash, but I can see where the sudden loss of a major influence on music at one point in time brings up a fork in the road where a path is taken which differs from the one the music apparently was originally headed.

Without delving too deeply in all they myriad "meanings", on the surface the song is taking the J.G. Whittier ". . . what could have been." view to lament the changes away from the style preferred by the singer. That is only one view, but I don't see anywhere in the song where it implies that other views are wrong.

I like the song, too, and do miss the old 1950's style R&R. However there has been a lot of good music produced since 1959 . . . and a lot of crap, too. This could be true of any period of time in the history of music. If there is anything that might distinguish "good" music from the bad or also-ran stuff, is how popular it is with our kids, grandkids, etc.

AP is still pretty popular almost 37 years later among much of our generation's grandkids, so I would say that McLean hit on something good . . . and these kids have even less of a clue what meaning(s) he was singing about, as they weren't there in 1959, nor were most of their parents.

Eu

P.S. Thanks Q and kat.