Don McLean Quotes

And when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

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.

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.

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. You will find many “interpretations” of my lyrics but none of them by me. Isn’t this fun? 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.

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

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

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

Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

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.

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

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

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

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.

Every thread of creation is held in position by still other strands of things living. In an earthly tapestry hung from the skyline of smoldering cities so gray and so vulgar, as not to be satisfied with their own negativity, but needing to touch all the living as well.

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

I've always been on the outside of all that political stuff so I just sort of watch it and I'm appalled and I think people should be screaming about a lot of things right now and they're not. They're just letting everything happen. I don't know. At some point the wheels are going to come off and we're going to have a real problem. The people are going to get angry and it's going to be too late.

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

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.

There's enough ugliness - you know, we got wars going on and people dying and sickness and everything. We don't need to have our art be ugly. But it is, in a lot of it. And these people justify this crap by saying, "Oh we're just representing what's out there, man". Basically, you're making it worse and number one, the artist's job is to elevate people and to lift people up and to give them a place to go, something to hold on to.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Something touched me deep inside The day the music died.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Bad news on the doorstep;I couldn’t take one more step

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

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.

I'm gonna say this and I really mean it - I'm very thankful that I'm not a huge star. I've all the stardom and celebrity that I can handle. But I also have peace and quiet. I am left alone. And I am not recognized everywhere I go and it's perfect. I can come and fill the theatres and I get on stage ... people say: "Well, oh yeah, that must be him," you know?

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

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.

Jerusalem is old, Jerusalem is new, Jerusalem can hold Moslem, Christian, Jew.

Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?

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.

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

Helter skelter in a summer swelter.

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.

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

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

Everything has become very corporate and very careful. Before we had a real democracy going and there were a lot of freedoms and now there's this terrorism thing that everybody's focused on, which is really a boondoggle in my opinion. It's just an excuse to clamp down on people's free speech. And corporations intimidate people and everybody's gotten intimidated and that's really what it is, and they just keep going along. It's almost like - a little bit like that Charlie Chaplin movie, Modern Times, or 1984, Orwell

I'm living in a world that was created a hundred years ago with vaudeville and people traveling around and medicine shows and things and making live music on stage and I'm still doing that. I like it that way. I like to present something to people that's had 40 years of being honed and perfected. It's something that you're not going to find with an artist who's been around for two or three years, or even ten years.