Bye, Bye

While the reports of violent crime reduction are encouraging (FBI, 2026), societal standards towards crime and criminals have turned law enforcement inside out. You start to wonder where we are going as a culture when only one person out of twelve – locked in a jury room for 38 hours… who heard similar information about the strangulation of three children… only one of twelve jurors believed that this woman was guilty of murder (Miller, 2026). The rest made excuses for the woman’s mental health. The lone juror is then persecuted and criticized for standing up for the law (Miller, 2026). Since when are murder laws optional? Can we actually blame society or postpartum depression for the premeditated death of three children? The jury’s paralysis and the judiciary’s coming leniency are different failures, but they share a root: a diminished confidence that certain acts are simply, non-negotiably wrong.

Even if the woman would have been convicted, how do we know that justice would have been served? Perhaps if her lawyers had secured the right judge, she would not have faced justice at all. There is even greater evidence these days of “soft-on-crime” judicial activism. For example, in August 2025, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed on a Charlotte, North Carolina, light-rail train by Decarlos Brown Jr., a career offender who had been released on a written promise to appear in court by North Carolina Magistrate Teresa Stokes just months earlier, following a prior arrest (Mallon, 2025). A similar pattern played out in Chicago, where Cook County Judge John F. Lyke Jr. placed felon Alphanso Talley on electronic monitoring in December 2025 over prosecutors' objections, citing personal "attitude adjustments" he'd observed in the defendant. By April 2026, Talley's monitor had gone dark, and he is now charged with murdering Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew and critically wounding his partner (WGN, 2026; ABC7 Chicago, 2026). While the public rages, none of these judges are being held accountable… and they illustrate a broader pattern of judicial leniency toward violent repeat offenders that critics argue has cost innocent lives.

"American Pie" remains one of the most sung, most argued-over songs in American music 

This shift towards crime rationalization and tolerance of criminal activity due to economic pressure and deprivation—because “even criminals need to survive” (De Courson and Nettle, 2021) caused me to ask where God is in all of this chaos. It reminded me of a ballad written over 50 years ago which pondered some of the same things.

In 1971, a young songwriter named Don McLean sat in a gatehouse in Cold Spring, New York, and wrote a song that would outlive every prediction made about it. His producer didn't believe in it. Radio executives didn't know what to do with a single that ran over eight minutes. Rolling Stone panned it. And yet, more than half a century later, "American Pie" remains one of the most sung, most argued-over songs in American music (Windsor, 2022; Scapelliti, 2026).

Part of why the song still captivates us is that McLean wrote a song that keeps re-happening. McLean himself has said the song is not a fixed portrait of one decade but something that continues to evolve as America itself changes (McLean, 2019). That built-in elasticity is likely a major reason it still lands with an audience living through its own version of cultural upheaval.

The other part of the answer is that the song captures grief, doubled. The opening verse mourns Buddy Holly, but McLean has revealed that the song also carries a private sorrow: the death of his own father when McLean was fifteen – a loss for which he grieved privately for two years (Scapelliti, 2026). His producer, Ed Freeman, described the finished song as a kind of funeral oration for an entire generation--a piece of music that let people grieve the loss of an era and finally move past it (McLean, 2019).

"King" in his song wears a "thorny crown”—and that figure, he said, is Jesus Christ

The song’s central refrain--“the day the music died—is the phrase McLean fixed to February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash (Pleacher, 2025). The lyrics in the 8-minute classic are filled with coded references to kings, queens, and jesters, along with a host of cultural figures (Farber, 2022). McLean also included several strong spiritual references in the song, which have led many to interpret these references more as musical icon references and not the actual spiritual connections that McLean intended (Scapelliti, 2026).

In a 2022 documentary, McLean broke his long public silence about the song's meaning and stated plainly that the "king" in his song wears a "thorny crown”--and that figure, he said, is Jesus Christ, not Elvis Presley as most listeners had assumed (Windsor, 2022). That single clarification reframes much of the song's imagery. Asking, "Do you have faith in God above, if the Bible tells you so?" seems to harken to the Sunday-school song "Jesus Loves Me;" while asking, “Can music save your mortal soul?" is the language of salvation applied to rock and roll itself, as though the music were being asked to do work that belongs to grace.

Taken together, these are not the fingerprints of a songwriter offering detached commentary on his culture. They are the fingerprints of a man working through personal loss in the only vocabulary he had--the language of his own faith--and arriving not at despair, but at unresolved longing. The questions the song asks—do you have faith, can music save your soul--are never answered. They are simply left open. That refusal to close the question, more than any specific lyric, may be what still holds an audience fifty-five years later. These lyrics also call out to us today--asking us the same questions.

McLean leaves that question suspended because that is where the song has to end. Christians do not have to leave it suspended. God has not caught the last train for the coast; His love does not shift with the culture, and His Word does not expire with the news cycle. That is the very thing McLean’s generation--and ours--most needed to hear.

The sixth verse is the one that jumped out at me in my musing over our current cultural milieu:

“And 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” (Pleacher, 2025).

Several lyric interpreters (Pleacher, 2025) speculate that McLean referred here to Buddy Holly and the three men who died in this plane crash in 1959. Others suggest that McLean is leaning on his own Roman Catholic faith, with a reference to a famous New York Times headline from that time period which declared, “God is dead” (NY Times, 1966). Having not watched the documentary I am unsure if McLean actually explained what he meant.

I don’t really subscribe to either theory presented, nor do I agree with the New York Times or anyone who suggests that “God is Dead” or that the Divine has left us up to our own devises. A case could certainly be made for the fact that it does seem at times that the Trinity is on their way out. They may not have caught the last train for the coast, but they may be packing their bags and making things ready to hustle on out of here.

Either way, there is urgency in spreading the Word that this world is “going to hell in a handbasket” (Jones, 2025) as my mom used to say. As a part of this awakening, friends Judi McLeod and Brian Thompson (2026) have written a great article examining this same subject--with a closing paragraph that is extremely relevant and compelling for such a time as this.

I don’t mean to sound the alarm, but if you have not made your decision on whom you will trust and where you will find yourself in the next life, it would be a good time to entertain these thoughts. Especially before the Restrainer has been taken out of the way (2 Thessalonians 2:7 ESV). So say your goodbyes to whatever you have been trusting instead—bye, bye—and say hello to the One who was, and is, and is to come.

Sources:

• ABC7 Chicago. (2026, April 29). Alphanso Talley faces Judge John Lyke, who put him on electronic monitoring before Swedish Hospital shooting killed CPD officer. 
• De Courson, B., & Nettle, D. (2021). Why do inequality and deprivation produce high crime and low trust? Scientific reports, 11(1), 1937. 
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• Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation (2026, August 14). FBI Releases 2025 Reported Crimes in the Nation Statistics. FBI: Criminal Justice Information Services Division. 
• Farber, J. (2022, July 19). "I said, Don, it's time for you to reveal": 50 years later, the truth behind American Pie. The Guardian. 
• Jones, P.A. (2025, April 7). Where Does the Phrase ‘Going to Hell in a Handbasket’ Come From? Mental Floss.
• Mallon, E. (2025, September 9). Rep. Fine proposes bill to allow lawsuits against judges releasing violent offenders. KFOX/The National Desk. 
• McLeod, J. & Thompson, B. (2026, September 16). With Every Sunrise Comes a Reassuring Reminder That It Is God--Not Government--Who Rules The World. Canada Free Press.
• McLean, D. (2019, July 11). About American Pie. Don McLean.
• Miller, B. (2026, September 17). Lindsay Clancy holdout praised as 'American Hero' by lawyer who says he represents him. Fox News Digital.
• NY Times (1966, January 9). Religion; 'God Is Dead' Debate Widens. NY Times.
• Pleacher, D. (2025). An explanation of the song, American Pie. Pleacher. 
• Scapelliti, C. (2026, July 4). "I cried for two years. I blamed myself." Don McLean on the "unspeakable" death that haunts his iconic hit "American Pie." Guitar Player. 
• Windsor, P. (2022, July 19). Don McLean tells the story of "American Pie" & explains the lyrics in new documentary. Forbes. 
• WGN Investigates. (2026, April 28). What court transcript shows about the hearing that released alleged cop killer Alphanso Talley in a previous case.