68+ Don McLean Quotes On Music, American Pie And American Revolution

Don McLean is an American singer-songwriter best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie". He is also known for his other hits such as "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)", "Crying", and "Castles in the Air". McLean is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Don McLean on music, love, american pie.

Top 10 Don McLean Quotes

1. 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.
2. Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect Vincent's eyes of china blue.
3. 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.
4. In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful.
5. Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
6. Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?
7. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
8. A long long time ago, I can still remember how that music use to make me smile.
9. Each thread of life that you leave, will spin around your deeds and dictate your needs.
10. Faces come and faces go in circular rotation.But something yearns within to grow beyond infatuation.

Don McLean Short Quotes

• We all got up to dance. Oh, but we never got the chance!
• Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack sat on a candle stick, cause fire is the devil's only friend.
• In the autumn of 1970 I had a job singing in the school system, playing my guitar in classrooms.
• Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
• Jerusalem is old, Jerusalem is new, Jerusalem can hold Moslem, Christian, Jew.
• They don't keep their promises in the promised land, its getting mighty hard to find an honest man.
• I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world.
• In the streets the children screamed. The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
• Over the years I've had more and more of an association with Nashville.
• The kids today all seem to think they should be stars, but I wasn't brought up that way.

Don McLean Quotes About Music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don McLean Quotes About American Pie

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

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

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

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

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

Don McLean Quotes About Song

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

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

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

Don McLean Quotes About People

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

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

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. — 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

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

Don McLean Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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. — 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

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

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

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

When writing I just go with the song. I go with the song and try to tell the story. So the story may be "Wonderful Baby", which is a little song. Or it might be a gentle song, "Empty Chairs". Or it might be a rock and roll song like "Prime Time" or "Run, Diana, Run", or "American Pie". I don't know where it's gonna go. I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I just do it. I just keep doing it. I keep taking adva — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

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? — Don McLean

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. — Don McLean

All you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it. — 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

The horrible thing about Death of princess Diana - the sacrificial lamb, which she was. And I believe, in a sense, John Kennedy, Jr. was the same thing. These are people that we loved so much that we drove them berserk with all the attention and they basically didn't have any particular stellar talents. They were just in some kind of a position somewhere where we fixed on them and they became, literally, sacrificial lambs — 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

It's really hard to teach me anything. I can't read music. I never learned how to read music. I read books about things and try to learn - I don't like to learn from anybody. Later on I would, once I'd get the hang of things. Like I ride horses, I'm good at that, Western riding. I learned all about it reading and studying. I'm always learning about horses, I like that. — Don McLean

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. — 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

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

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 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'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. — Don McLean

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. — 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

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

Life Lessons by Don McLean

1. Don McLean's work emphasizes the importance of storytelling and creating meaningful lyrics. He often uses historical and personal references to create powerful and evocative songs.
2. Don McLean's music is often a reflection of his own life experiences, and can teach us to use our own stories to connect with others and create meaningful art.
3. Don McLean's work is a reminder to be creative, to take risks, and to make music that resonates with people. His work can inspire us to be brave and to express ourselves through our art.