When quizzed about the meaning of his song Amercian Pie, singer-songwriter Don McLean once famously joked it meant he'd "never have to work again".
Now, the original manuscript for the ballad has been sold at auction, giving its owner a unique insight into what the song was all about.
A long, long time ago, in 1971, American Pie was released and it spoke to a generation of young Americans.
Mystery shrouded the true meaning of the poetic ballad by Don McLean, but no longer, after the original manuscript sold at auction for over US$1.5 million.
"You're seeing the author at work before it ever became what it became. He didn't know then, of course, what it would become," said Tom Lecky from Christie's auction house in New York.
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The beginning of the song, McLean had previously admitted, was inspired by the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash in 1959
McLean was a 13-year-old paperboy at the time and he mourned the death with these famous lyrics: "Something touched me deep inside ...The day the music died."
McLean has now revealed much of the rest of the song tells the story of America during the idealized 1950s and the bleaker 1960s.
A nation, he told auction house Christie's, "heading in the wrong direction" in which life is "less idyllic".
Christie's says in this line, "And while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown," it's fair to surmise that "the king" is Elvis Presley and the Jester Bob Dylan.
It says, later in the song, Helter Skelter refers to the Charles Manson murders and Jack Flash the Rolling Stones.
At just over eight and a half minutes, American Pie is the longest ever to top the US charts.
