Don McLean
The legendary singer-songwriter talks to John-Paul Davies about the trials of performing solo, social media and of course American Pie, ahead of his Cardiff show.
Don McLean could just stop. In fact, he could have stopped around 1971 when American Pie was released. That song alone has gone on to be played three million times on US radio. Vincent, the other single from American Pie the album, is no slouch in the iconic stakes either. So, some 47 years later, what is this exceptional writer and musician looking for from his new album and tour? “Sales, I hope. And some approval would be nice.”
McLean is a little droll and very relaxed on the phone from his home in Maine. For an artist famous for not giving away the meaning to his lyrics, he can’t wait to talk about the song he performs on every night of every tour. “The first part, the ‘long long time ago’ part, right through to ‘the day the music died’, that came to me complete and I just sang it into the tape recorder. And it was almost like some kind of genie came out of the bottle. I said, ‘Wow, what is that? What am I going to do with this?’”
What he did was to redefine folk-rock as eloquent, rather than edgy, and pave the way for the hundreds of West Coast troubadours that would follow in his wake. “I had certain songwriting abilities and at that point, in 1969, I had what they wanted – which other singer-songwriters offered – but I was a little more careful with the English language. And I think that my singing was a little more melodic and a little bit more controlled. I was a student of bel canto singing; I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison and Sinatra.”
At 72, McLean’s voice is just as pure and his guitar playing still as intricate. Like Paul Simon, it’s easy to forget how good a player he is. But he wouldn’t go on the road solo again. “I never liked the solo shows. I did that for about 20 years and I was very lonely in those years.” It’s also easy to forget what a huge star McLean was, especially stateside, so it’s odd to think of the lonely man amongst all those crowds.
He can’t imagine trying to make it now, with the pressures of social media and all the accompanying scrutiny. “No one’s good enough to have a statue,” he tells me, and it feels like a line from a response song to Everybody Loves Me Baby. But McLean does have this advice for today’s young writers: “Put good things in your mind and good things will come out. If you put garbage in your mind you’re going to get garbage. It’s so hard for them not to put garbage in their minds because there is so much of it out there now.”
At least McLean knows he’s done his bit to clean up the world. The purity of his writing, in the song Tapestry, inspired the formation of Greenpeace. “This is something that I’m very proud of. You don’t really know where songs are going to end up.”
So does he really care about money and praise after having that sort of impact? Writers write to be heard and, after all, everyone’s got to eat. More than anything, McLean is aware that his new work isn’t addressing the issues of the day. “At some point I’m going to get into what is going on in the world with both feet and come out with something that’s about all the stuff that’s happening right now,” he offers by way of justification. The need to be relevant, even now, is still there.
Until then? “You’re going to see a lot of stuff. You’re going to see a rock’n’roll band that’s going to play American Pie and songs from [new release] Botanical Gardens. And quieter things, you know, Empty Chairs, Crossroads. And sometimes I’ll just sit and play two or three songs on my guitar.” Alone, but not lonely.
Don McLean, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Sun 6 May. Tickets £32.50-£42.50. Info: 029 2063 6464 / www.wmc.org.uk