IT WASN'T ABOUT JFK. Don McLean's "American Pie" came out in the fall of 1971. A lot of us thought the line about "widowed bride" was one of several references to the Kennedy assassinations. The bride in question was Buddy Holly's wife (see this interpretation, in which some of the references to events later in the 1960s might be in error) and "the day the music died" refers to a 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, and Ritchie Valens. William Polley finds a commemorative event at the Iowa dance hall that became the site of their last concert.

Trivia question: what is the site of the last authenticated Elvis sighting?