The man there said the music wouldn't play"
And these words are not just symbolic. "Literally, the music stores that had once provided listening booths for their customers were by this time no longer offering this service," writes Fann.
But even more so, "the cynicism of this generation had annihilated the innocent world the narrator had grown up in."
That kind of music simply wouldn't play any more.
Forty-three years later, it would be nice to think that - whatever the revelations to come from McLean's original scribbled notes - they will not burst the bubble for the millions of fans who still dream of Chevys, whisky and rye.