“American Pie” by Joe Harris

Keywords: pedagogy, interpretation, literacy, narrative, revision

Abstract: Joe Harris recalls an experience with a literacy sponsor from high school. Harris explores the origin of his love for interpretation and shares his story about making meaning from cultural exchanges. The narrative also extols the use of media in the classroom as a means of helping students form their literate identities.    

Harris: Well, the first time I really got absorbed by reading and writing--I think--was in high school. I learned how to write as a kid, and when I hear other people give their literacy narratives, they often have these great stories about--you know--parents and being little and cut-out letters and things like that. And I don’t really remember that stuff so much. Actually, when I was a kid, I was always more interested in science and math and sports until my junior year in high school, and I remember going into English class that year with Mr. E. McCabe. There were two McCabe brothers, a B. McCabe and an E. McCabe, and everybody said I was really lucky--this would be 1973; I think--and I was really lucky because E. McCabe did “American Pie.” I didn’t even know what that meant at the time, but it meant that his kickoff lesson for the year was to play and interpret Don McLean’s “American Pie,” which was about two years old at the time. 

Interviewer: Yeah

Harris: As I listen to myself speak now, it sounds sort of corny, but I thought it was just exhilarating because I can remember him literally wheeling the record player into class. He was a young guy about thirty--Catholic high school teacher but seemed like a real hipster to me. And I can remember him--you know--picking up the needle, putting it back down. We would listen to a verse, and we would start to talk about what it meant. Of course the song is about the death of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper and the plane crash. I had known the song, but I had no hint that that was what it was about.

Interviewer: Right

Harris: And this whole world of interpretation actually opened up to me, the notion that a text could mean something that it didn’t at first appear to mean; that was exciting. I think I knew that from reading literature in previous years, but what was really exciting was, it was a song I knew and liked. It was part of my culture. And I remember soon after that, I started listening to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and so on. And it was just this revelation that my own culture could be filled with meaning, and I still look back on that as sort of the perfect English class or at least for me. 

Interviewer: Joe, what did it feel like to be interviewed?

Harris: I actually thought it was very interesting to be interviewed because what struck me first and most strongly was that you give up a certain level of control, and what I think I like about writing is the ability to go back and to make every sentence as perfect as I can and to create a kind of polished version of myself. I do like that, but I think it might be useful for me sometimes just to give up that level of meta-control over my language and actually just go with the flow of words. So I’m eager to see what all this sounds like. 

Interviewer: Well, that’s cool.