Best 65 quotes of Don Mclean on MyQuotes

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Because of an off-hand funny comment I made backstage at a concert years ago, a story circulated that the song has been a burden and even that I didn’t sing it for a while. That’s completely false. I am very proud of ‘American Pie’ and the many satellites that grow from it and revolve around it. For many years I carried my songs around and now they carry me around. I have always sung ‘American Pie’ for my audience and would never think of disappointing them since it is they who have given me a wonderful life and untold affection for almost 30 years.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have no idea how I do anything. I never have. You know 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. And I have been doing this for 40 years, adding songs and writing things, cobbling together albums, doing live things, you know, albums and tours. And then I have records on the charts. I have no idea how this happened.

I like to bring my audience on a journey during my 90 minute concert. I will tell stories every few songs about the creation of a tune etc. and it gives the listener a glimpse inside my songs and then as you get to the last half hour you pick up the pace and work harder and get more into the show. It's all about stagecraft.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

It's a video world now, you know? It's not a musical world. It's a video world. I can watch videos. I see videos, you know, Britney Spears, she's sexy. I like to watch her videos. It's not like the music is what I'm hearing. It's different now. But it's not my world. It's the world of young people and they have what they want and they have what the technology and the society produces as a result of all these advancements that have occurred. And the in the future we'll have something else. Maybe we'll have holograms and, you know, all kinds of stuff.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

That's the hard thing - getting started. You get started for a long time until you finally get to this point where people call you an icon or whatever they call you. It's nice. Suddenly the audience is with you more and they help you along and it's not so much that you have to do everything.