The Day the Music Died

The other day HERE I mentioned running around singing American Pie; like any young, handsome philosopher of the day whose body was lean and ripped, seemingly made out of turpentine and raw tiger sinew I too pried apart every line, trying to figure out every line as if a riddle. After all these years the answers might be with THIS GUY, who might be a bit over the top.

And while Lennon read a book on Marx,

Literally, John Lennon reading about Karl Marx; figuratively, the introduction of radical politics into the music of the Beatles. (Of course, he could be referring to Groucho Marx, but that doesn't seem quite consistent with McLean's overall tone. On the other hand, some of the wordplay in Lennon's lyrics and books is reminiscint of Groucho.) The "Marx-Lennon" wordplay has also been used by others, most notably the Firesign Theatre on the cover of their album "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?". Also, a famous French witticism was "Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho."; "I'm a Marxist of the Groucho variety".

It's also a pun on "Lenin".