All day Wednesday after the election I couldn't get the lyric "the day the music died" out of my head. Why is this so insistent? The day the music died.

Can music save your immortal soul? Do we believe in America and apple pie? We used to believe in America, but while the king was looking down the jester stole his thorny crown, the courtroom was adjourned; no verdict was returned. And while Lenin read a book of Marx we sang dirges in the dark the day the music died.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee and they spent our money overseas while half the country was drinking whiskey and rye.

And we were all in one place, a generation lost in space and they gave our space program away with no time left to start again. We tried a forward pass with the jester on the sidelines in a cast. We got up to dance, but we never got the chance. Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?

We went down to the sacred store where I'd heard the music years before, but the man there said the music wouldn't play -- in the streets the children screamed. The three men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast the day the music died.

And they were singing: Bye, bye Miss American Pie. And I remembered how the music used to make me smile.

Adrian P. Heuermann

Carlyle