Grammy-award honoree, Songwriters Hall of Fame member, and BBC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Don McLean has been nominated for a 2023 MTV Movie and TV Award in the Best Music Documentary category for The Day The Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie. Other nominees include Halftime, Love, Lizzo, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, and Sheryl. The MTV Movie and TV Awards will be hosted by Drew Barrymore and airing live on Sunday, May 7 at 8 PM ET/PT from the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica, California. America Pie was released in 1971 and spent four weeks at No. 1 in 1972. In 2001, thirty years later, the Recording Industry of America named it the fifth greatest song of the 20th century.

“Thank you, MTV for selecting my documentary as a nominee for Best Music Documentary at this year’s awards,” shares McLean. “I didn’t realize until I made this movie that my song, ‘American Pie’ really took ten years to write. It was a journey from 1960 to 1970 as I learned about where I was headed and where America was headed. In some ways, they were the ten best years of my life.”

With a narrative running deeper than a catchy tune and cryptic verses, “American Pie” is a musical phenomenon woven deep into the history of American culture, entertaining audiences around the world for over 50 years. In THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: THE STORY OF DON McLEAN’S “AMERICAN PIE,” McLean powerfully reveals and shares the secrets behind his iconic song. In addition, the documentary highlights cultural moments in America’s history that are as relevant now as they were in 1971 when the song was released. The film tells stories of the people who were a part of this moment from the beginning and shows the point of view of a new generation of artists who are motivated by the same values and ideas that inspired the song’s creation.

“This documentary is something that will make people think, especially since so many throughout the years have asked me what certain lyrics meant or whom I was referring to, but now I finally can solve many of those mysteries,” says McLean. “Everyone from Madonna to Garth Brooks to Weird Al Yankovic has recorded ‘American Pie’ and made it their own. So many people have their own interpretation of the song, and I love it.”

To help bring the documentary to life, McLean enlisted music producer and songwriter Spencer Proffer, CEO of media production company Meteor 17. In a collaborative vision, Proffer and McLean tell the story of this special and unique song by using contemporary audio/visual storytelling techniques to artistically reimagine the music for a modern audience.