The 77-year-old New York-born songwriter and performer Don McLean will live forever. He will do that thanks to his song “American Pie,” which, among other things, talks about the “day the music died.” Yes, that fateful day when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash.
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Through tragedy comes triumph, the story of true art. And McLean is at the center of that, which is why his name will ring out forever. But aside from his music, what might the singer have to say about the world around him, about life and love? These are the best 20 Don McLean quotes.
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1. “I got my first guitar when I was 16. I’d play for my family and friends, but taking that guitar out there into the wide, wide world wasn’t something I ever thought about.”
2. “I had asthma when I was a kid, asthma so bad that it would turn into pneumonia and I almost died several times. Nobody knew why back then, but now it’s obvious.”
3. “There’s always a fundamental misery that’s with me that I always relate to some bit of loss or something. I don’t know what it is about me, but even though I’m happy on the surface, there’s something there, I guess. So, it all comes from wherever it comes from. I really don’t know where that is.”
4. “I don’t relate to what’s left of the music business. There doesn’t seem to be any point to it anymore. The business that I grew up in and loved, we made records a different way—there were record companies, there were stores where you could buy albums.”
5. “My parents were not musical, and they were not effervescent people; everything was very quiet. The music that I played was loud; it used to drive them up the wall. My father died, and that was a tragedy for everybody, but suddenly I didn’t have anybody to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.”
6. “I actually feel I’m in a much better place than I’ve ever been because I’m thankful people still love the songs that I’ve written, and they seem to like me. And they come to the shows in droves, and they get all excited, and I can still hit all the notes, and I don’t look terrible.”
7. “I developed this fantasy world. I found that that was much more fun and more interesting and exciting than real life was to me. Then, once I got the guitar going when I was a teenager, I set sail for the direction I’ve been in my whole life.”
8. “I think longevity is more important than trying to make people realize you’re around every second.”
9. “That song didn’t just happen. It grew out of my experiences. ‘American Pie’ was part of my process of self-awakening: a mystical trip into my past.”
10. “Herman Melville was supposed to be an accountant. Van Gogh was meant to be an art dealer. I was meant to take the train into New York and work for a bank. To be an artist, you have to say goodbye to your family.”
11. “Before the Beatles, America was musically a very conservative country. You can see film footage of people at a baseball game, they all had hats and ties on, and the women were dressed up like they were going to church. That was the America that I started getting interested in musically.”
12. “When people ask what ‘American Pie’ is about, they’re missing the point. The song isn’t about the lines themselves—it’s about what is between the lines. The song is about what isn’t there.”
13. “I’m glad that my music has helped other people as it’s helped me. It makes me glad that I did what I did with my life.”
14. “The kids today all seem to think they should be stars, but I wasn’t brought up that way.”
15. “But I knew—in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don’t care if it was ‘Yellow Submarine’ or ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ or ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, you knew it, you know? You heard that song, and you were talking about it, and you knew it.”
16. “Basically, in ‘American Pie,’ things are heading in the wrong direction. It is becoming less ideal, less idyllic. I don’t know whether you consider that wrong or right, but it is a morality song in a sense.”
17. “No matter how happy or hopeful I am, I always tend to drift back to that. It’s underneath all the music I’ve ever written… An artist is trying to tell you how he’s feeling. And if that accidentally becomes entertaining, it becomes a career.”
18. “I’ve never done anything but what I wanted to do with my life. I don’t think too many people can say that. I wrote the songs I wanted to write, for me. I had no idea that ‘American Pie’ would relate to anybody.”
19. “If you listen to one of my albums, you can tell I do a lot of different things. In the case of ‘Vincent’, I thought of his picture ‘Starry Night.’ It was a beautiful road map for a song. I used a lot of imagery from that painting.”
20. “I was always into my music and maybe into trying to save the world a little bit. I never really thought I’d have a hit record or anything like that. I was prepared to travel around all over the country, kind of like a Johnny Appleseed, and sing.”
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