Don McLean on the tragedy behind American Pie: 'I cried for two years'

By Rob Walker

 

‘You couldn’t talk about my sister because you couldn’t tell the truth’ … Don McLean in the 1970s. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

 

When Don McLean was 15 years old, he had a premonition that his father was going to die. Distraught, he ran to tell his grandmother.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Donny, why would you say such a thing?” she said. “Because it’s going to happen,” the boy replied. A few days later, his father dropped dead right in front of him. “I saw how he looked,” says McLean. “He’d turned green. I didn’t know what I was going to do without him. He was the king, the boss. He knew everything.”

 

The singer-songwriter behind the 1971 classic American Pie is speaking from his home in Palm Desert, a town in California where he is now well into what he calls the “desert phase” of his life.

 

Wildfires are still burning across the state. You can’t see the sun for the acrid smoke. “I’m feeling it in my lungs,” says the 75-year-old.

 

Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/22/don-mclean-american-pie-its-meaning-family-deaths-tragedy-60s

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

I cried for two years

Oh dear! Without getting dry eyes or infection? That´s something for Guinness!

I can't  remember if I cried the night I heard the music died......

16 hours ago, Matzzon said:

Oh dear! Without getting dry eyes or infection? That´s something for Guinness!

You mean the record book, or a tall glass.  You can cry over spilled milk, but hells bells, I would be fighting over a spilled Guinness.  Oops I think I went of topic, "so can you teach me how to dance real slow"

I remember some bright spark at work who translated all the lyrics into Latin.

 

And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast.

 

An iconic song for a generation.