Don McLean famous quotes

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

#Mean #Pie #People

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

#Hippie #Believe #Rocks

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

#Gratitude #People #Glad

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

#Dry #Chevy

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

#Girl #Song #Father

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

#Grateful #People #Forever

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

#Evil #Soul #Loved Ones

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

#Flower #Eye #Night

Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
-- Don McLean

#Summer

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

#Art #Angel #Media

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

#Art #Media #Play

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

#Fall #Eight #Musical

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

#Fire #Games #Devil

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

#Kings #Land #Clothes

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

#Needs #Deeds #Adages

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

#Song #Stuff #Fantasy

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

#Song #Sorry #Moving

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

#People #World #Spinning

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

#Reality #Men #Land

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

#Reality #Space #Generations

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.
-- Don McLean

#Song #Thinking #Hands

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.
-- Don McLean

#Beautiful #Suicidal #Night

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

#Hippie #Chance

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

#Children #Lovers #Poet

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

#News #Steps

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

#Music #Player #Yield

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

#Song #Loss #Pie

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

#Dream #Song #Wall

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

#Reality #Broken #Church

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

#Laughing #Delight #Saws

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

#Sadness #Men #Heartache

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

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

#Thinking #People #Important

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

#Summer #Song #Eye

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

#Fun #Real #Teenager

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

#Different #Albums #Records

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

#Guitar #Play #Family And Friends

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

#Kids #Pneumonia #Obvious

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

#Country #Trying #Records

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

#Stars #Kids #Thinking

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

#Men #Thinking #Goes On

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

#Work #Dust #Blood

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

#Music #People #States

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

#Song #Talking #Yellow

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

#Nashville #Years #Association

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

#Christian #Religious #Religion

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

#Religious #Jesus #Believe

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

#Philosophy #Sea #Rivers

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

#Philosophy #Cities #Negativity

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

#Dream #Philosophy #Sky

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

#Rock And Roll #Long #Use

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

#Romantic #Beautiful #World

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

#Giving Up #Singing #Want

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

#Mean #World #Given

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

#Song #Pie #Hopeful

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

#Jobs #School #Autumn

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

#Rotation #Faces #Infatuation