ACE writes
It's pretty widely accepted that the “jester" in McLean's song “American Pie" is Dylan, and Bob understandably didn't take kindly to basically being referred to as a clown.
McLean has never officially confirmed that he was talking about Dylan, but it's pretty obvious he was if you actually listen to the lyrics. The lyric “the jester sang for the king and queen/in a coat he borrowed from James Dean” would seem to refer to the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, on which Dylan wears a jacket similar to one worn by Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Then you have “while the King was looking down/the jester stole his thorny crown". The King is Elvis (obviously), dethroned by the young upstart Dylan.
The closest that McLean has come to admitting that Dylan was the jester when asked was to say, “I can't tell you, but he'd make a damn good jester, wouldn't he?”
That's also not complimentary.
Look, I love “American Pie", but one could hardly blame McLean if he was a little jealous of and salty toward Dylan. McLean has coasted on one song for over 50 years; take away that song and nobody under the age of around 60 knows who the hell he is. Dylan, meanwhile, is… well, Bob Dylan.
BC writes:
Dylan may have been unhappy feeling that McLean in “American Pie” symbolically used him (the jester) as a scapegoat for changing taste.
50’s rock music didn’t suddenly die with Holly’s plane crash as McLean laments, however public taste was starting to change. Although Dylan was part of an impetus for that change, he wasn’t the only one at that time that was leading to further evolution in rock music. Even in 1962 music was changing before Dylan was recognized. For example, before him we had the advent of soul music and surf music in the early 60’s. Dylan was an artist who wrote a completely different type of music for his time and people responded to him, much like the Beatles shortly thereafter.
On July 19, 2022 a documentary by filmmaker Spencer Proffer titled “The Day the Music Died” was released on Paramount+ where McLean said the song was driven by impressionism. In the movie he addresses much of the symbolism that led to wide speculation. (the king and the jester have nothing to do with Elvis or Dylan, the “marching band” is the military-industrial complex and “sweet perfume” was tear gas) Taking ten years to write the song, he was deeply moved after Holly’s plane crash and the evolution of music and the changing times that came after it (war protests, political assassinations, the divisiveness present in America at the time). The song also reflected a loss of innocence for McLean, since music and culture was changing and he wanted Holly’s era to go on indefinitely.
NN writes:
I haven’t heard about this feud. Has either man acknowledged it? If anything, Dylan is like a junkyard dog, protecting his turf. Both men are accomplished writers. Fifty years ago, Dylan might have been jealous of McLean, but Dylan found an audience and McLean never did. McLean’s work is more “Van Gogh” while Dylan is more “Picasso.” After fifty years, any feud should be rendered meaningless by their starkly different trajectories.
