A Song for Europe (Father Ted) ultimately cut down to just long enough for people familiar with the out-take to get the reference. Ted mentions "Icy-Tea" and "Scoopy Scoopy Dog Dog" meaning Ice-T and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The tragic story of Nin Huguen and the Huguenotes' deaths in a plane crash could be a reference to similar events with past musician artists such as the "Day the Music Died" (deaths of The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens) and the loss of multiple members of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the 1977 Convair CV-240 crash. Ted mentions that there was a priest named Father Benny Cake who
American Pie (song) of the other lyrics has long been debated, and for decades, McLean declined to explain the symbolism behind the many characters and events mentioned. However, the overall theme of the song is the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation as symbolized by the plane crash which claimed the lives of three of its heroes. In 2017, McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant". While it has been claimed that Don McLean began writing the song in upstate Saratoga Springs,