Don McLean "American Pie"

The death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (February 3, 1959)

After a plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper on their way to Minnesota, Don McLean commemorated it appropriately with "American Pie" -- a song that begins with that tragedy, but ends on another: the 1969 Altamont Free Concert that saw deaths at the hands of the Hell's Angels, temporary security for the Rolling Stones. And suddenly, "for 10 years we've been on our own" make a lot more sense.