Don McLean Quotes & Sayings

People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity. Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

Every pulse of your heartbeat is one liquid moment that flows through the veins of your being. Like a river of life flowing on since creation, approaching the sea with each new generation. — Don McLean

Each thread of life that you leave, will spin around your deeds and dictate your needs. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

I have a weird sense sometimes of what's going to happen before it happens, and I kind of live by that, which is how my instincts operate, I suppose. — Don McLean

A long long time ago, I can still remember how that music use to make me smile. — Don McLean

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was dry. Good old boys drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this'll be the day that I die. — Don McLean

I met a girl who sang the blues
and I asked her for some happy news,
but she just smiled and turned away.
And the three men I admire most,
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train to the coast
The day the music died. — Don McLean

And as the players tried to take the field, the Marching Band refused to yield ... — Don McLean

I feel like a spinning top or a DreidelThe spinning don't stop when you leave the cradleYou just slow downRound and around this world you goSpinning through the lives of the people you knowWe all slow down. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me ... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence. — Don McLean

You're going to be buying your ticket with your heartache, you're gonna be payin' the man with your dues. You're gonna be living alone when you hear that whistle moan, you're gonna be learnin' to live with the blues. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect Vincent's eyes of china blue. — Don McLean

In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful. — Don McLean

Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul? — Don McLean

Jerusalem is old, Jerusalem is new, Jerusalem can hold Moslem, Christian, Jew. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

If something comes up I might write about it, but without an outlet the whole thing winds down. — Don McLean

I am what I do, and that's partly why I don't want to give up singing. But when I can't sing well, I will. — Don McLean

I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call 'Don McLean' when I was probably in high school. — Don McLean

Not a word was spoken. The church bells all were broken. — Don McLean

They don't keep their promises in the promised land, its getting mighty hard to find an honest man. — Don McLean

Being on United Artists was almost as bad as not being on any label at all. They were the crappiest in the business. All they did was movie soundtracks. Now, they were making an effort to become much hipper - signing people like Bobby Womack and what have you. — Don McLean

And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you
That I'm tired of Castles in the Air
I've got a dream I want the world to share in castle walls
Just leave me to despair
Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky
A dream come true, I'll live there 'til I die
I'm asking you, to say my last good-bye
The love we knew, ain't worth another try — Don McLean

My face on every coin engraved, the anarchists are all enslaved. My flag is forever waved, by the grateful people I have saved. — Don McLean

There we were all in one place, a generation lost in space. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

I was always just 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. — Don McLean

When I go on the road now, which is less than before, but still more than I'd like to, I think of myself primarily as a singer. Not a songwriter, not a celebrity, just a man who likes to sing. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

In the autumn of 1970 I had a job singing in the school system, playing my guitar in classrooms. — Don McLean

I'd listen to all the stuff that was going on around me and drift off into my fantasies about it. My fantasies have fuelled all the songs I've ever written. — Don McLean

Work my hands in the soil, what's the pay for all the toil? Dust for blood, dust for blood, dust for blood. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

Starry Starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land. — Don McLean

Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, a dream come true, I'll live there til I die. — Don McLean

Devoid of all romance, the music plays and everyone must dance. I'm bowing out. — Don McLean

The Byrds flew off the fallout shelter, eight miles high and falling fast. — Don McLean

Over the years I've had more and more of an association with Nashville. — Don McLean

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack sat on a candle stick, cause fire is the devil's only friend. — Don McLean

I saw satan laughing with delight
The day the music died. — Don McLean

In the streets the children screamed. The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed — Don McLean

Faces come and faces go in circular rotation.But something yearns within to grow beyond infatuation. — Don McLean

All roads lead to 'American Pie.' 'As American as apple pie' was the saying. It was some kind of a big American song that I wanted to write, which would be a conclusion for my show and bring all the songs home, which it still does. I can go anywhere I want with American music and come home to that. And it all makes sense. — Don McLean

Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. — Don McLean

But I knew - in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don't care if it was 'Yellow Submarine' or, you know, 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. — Don McLean

I was around in 1970, and now I am around in 2015 ... there is no poetry and very little romance in anything anymore, so it is really like the last phase of 'American Pie.' — Don McLean

As you sell your soul and sow your seeds, and you wound yourself and your loved ones bleed. And your habits grow and your conscience feeds, on all that you thought you should be. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

I think longevity is more important than trying to make people realize you're around every second. — Don McLean

I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world. — Don McLean

We all got up to dance. Oh, but we never got the chance! — Don McLean

Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died? — Don McLean

How did the land of Jefferson, how did the land of King, become the land of hamburgers and raisins that can sing? Roosevelt was cripple, Lincoln was a geek, they'd never get elected, their clothes were never chic. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

Some believe in Jesus, they don't act like they do. Some believe in Mohammed, I don't believe that's true. Cause they do believe in money, and gold is what it's for, all the gold can't buy no peace of mind in a world that don't believe in nothing anymore. — Don McLean

As I watched him on the stage, my hands were clinched in fists of rage. No angel born in hell, could break that Satan's spell. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

Bad news on the doorstep;I couldn't take one more step — Don McLean

The kids today all seem to think they should be stars, but I wasn't brought up that way. — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has. — Don McLean

My expectations for myself were never high. I had a very unusual way of writing songs and of thinking about music. I wasn't at all like Bob Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel. I was completely different - I didn't have a David Geffen at my side. — Don McLean

Every thread of creation is held in position by still other strands of things living. — Don McLean

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. — Don McLean

Something touched me deep inside The day the music died. — Don McLean