AARP asked the singer-songwriter: “Do you agree with the consensus that the song points to an end of innocence in America?”
McLean responded:
“The Depression and World War II ended innocence pretty good. We always had apocalyptic events and there was always a sense of trouble. The institutions began failing in the ’60s because people didn’t believe in them anymore. My little theory is we were brought up on rock ’n’ roll and God and country and Western movies and morality plays about right and wrong. Everyone knew Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers and their code of conduct. After Kennedy was killed, I read Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgment (disputing the Warren Commission findings). All of us in college realized the government was withholding information about the assassination. And still is.”
Source: Don McLean Celebrates 50th Anniversary of ‘American Pie’