LogFAQs > #967097611

The song is okay, but it's mythologized in a really cyclical and repetitive way like Hotel California is and it has the sort of reputation that makes the most annoying brand of drooling moron overplay it because of its status as a masterpiece. Then those same morons get on your case for not wanting to listen to it for the fiftieth time, because your burnt-out ass is "disrespecting a classic".

Like once you crack the mystery, that it's a historical account of the musical landscape from the death of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper up to where the song was released, the mythologisation starts to get old really quick because the same handful of shallow hacks will keep perpetuating this narrative that it's such a tightly woven mystery that the average layperson will never know its true meaning.

I had a friend who would play the same songs over and over and would like repeat the same platitudes over and over until it was almost unbearable. Like I showed him Pac-Man by Gorillaz and he would keep rapping Colt 45 by Afroman over the beat because that was the most striking part of the song to him, that it was so tightly measured and expressive that he could rap other songs over it. That guy wore American Pie out for me. Just fucking played it and repeated the whole "wow what a saga it's an incredible song" spiel for months, had me entirely sick of this song by the end of it. Like good for him, but I just couldn't stand it after a while. He had that effect on me with a lot of his tastes, and I'm glad I'm not friends with him any more because when I eventually voiced my displeasure he'd like make it out that there was something wrong with me. That baggage is just sort of latched onto American Pie now because of that guy.

To go further into the Hotel California comparison, that song is ultimately a self contained narrative about a guy visiting a hotel and experiencing a bunch of spooky shit. But for years it's been held up as this song depicting a hidden truth, where its applicability as a narrative has supplanted the actual narrative as a song. It's about drugs, or it's about the music industry - when it's just this song about like ghosts or murderers or cultists or some weird shit the narrator gets entirely too caught up in. That's what makes it so compelling, it's this evocative story about being trapped somewhere against your will and having forbidden knowledge, and it's just a weird non-sequitur about this fuckin ghost motel or something.

But where it goes wrong is when people insist on there being that hidden meaning. Where the song is placed on a pedestal as a masterful tale woven beyond the ability for mere mortals to comprehend it because of some bullshit fan interpretation that dictates that its meaning must be more significant than just being a suspenseful story about getting innocently wrapped up in some weird ghost shit. Where the mastery of the song is based entirely on horseshit that makes the reader and writer feel more smart than they actually are. And the exact same problem befalls American Pie, even though it actually does have an explanation that connects all those dots. People still call it an unsolved riddle, and that applicability that other people try to use to fit other narratives into it is why it's so widespread.

Again - fine song. I loved it for years. But it gets really old when people prioritise this mysterious narrative above the strength of the song itself, and all you hear from people are how masterful and evocative the song is for years and years instead of just listening to it as a piece of music. It's a classic, and therefore we must play it as much as possible as a way of honouring it as a classic. And we must dictate what makes it a classic whenever it comes on, whether it be the actual explanation of the song or some WatchMojo-tier cult of personality horseshit that fluffs up the legend so morons can speak up the whole thing. It gets really old after a while.