He gave us one of the most iconic songs of all time: 'American Pie." 50 years later, American treasure Don McLean is still making iconic music. His latest masterpiece, American Boys , includes 13 brand-new songs honoring rock and roll and those who paved the way for the genre. At 78 years young, McLean is still hitting the road, touring through the end of the year. We were fortunate to welcome him back to our studios for a third time to hear all about it. This is a Lifeminute with Don McLean.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, this is Don McLean, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:04He gave us one of the most iconic songs of all time.
00:08I started singing, bye, bye, Miss American Pie.
00:12Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry.
00:16At 78 years young, American treasure Don McLean is still giving us great music.
00:22We were so fortunate to have him back at the Life Minute studios recently
00:26to tell us all about his latest album, American Boys.
00:30Thirteen tracks honoring rock and roll and those who paved its way.
00:34This is a Life Minute with Don McLean.
00:37How have I lasted this long? That's the key now. That's the question.
00:40Longevity.
00:41How did I do it?
00:42How did you do it?
00:43Don't push yourself. Live to fight another day. Don't rush around too much.
00:47Jim Croce died rushing him around.
00:50The wonderful Ricky Nelson, beautiful Ricky Nelson died rushing him around all over the place.
00:56One day I said, don't push me.
01:00I'll go when I'm ready.
01:02We'll do it the way I want to do it.
01:04Best decision I ever made, because I ran and ran until 1974, and I had a nervous breakdown.
01:09How old were you when that happened?
01:111975, I was about 29.
01:13But I figured it out. This is what kills people.
01:17I wasn't equipped for this. You don't grow up being equipped for fame and stardom and money.
01:22This lady came to interview me after I had become very famous, and she wrote this article.
01:28I said, Don McLean is a millionaire.
01:31And I thought about all those girls whose parents didn't want me to take their daughter out.
01:36Retribution.
01:38They now changed their whole tune.
01:41I told her not to do that, but she went and did it anyway.
01:44I know you were so young when you started. Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?
01:48That's the only thing I was any good at.
01:51The only thing that got any reaction that made me think that I was different than other kids was when I sang.
01:57When I would sing, the mothers would call my mother.
02:00They would say, oh, everybody loves Donnie singing, you have to do something with that.
02:04I loved to do it, and then Elvis Presley and the Kingston Trio happened almost at the same time.
02:12Everybody was playing guitars and banjos, and Elvis was playing guitar.
02:17And I think, boy, if I could just play one of those things, I could be a contained person.
02:22It just fell right in my lap.
02:24It was amazing, because prior to that, if you wanted to be a singer, you'd have to read music and sing with an orchestra.
02:31And I didn't want to do that. I can't read music, and I didn't want to sing with an orchestra.
02:35But this was perfect, and I loved it so much.
02:39And banjo, too, five-string banjo.
02:41I became a really good folk banjo player, and I used to be on a lot of records.
02:47That's how I would augment my living.
02:49People would call me in to play because I was good at it.
02:52I learned from Pete Seeger and Eric Darling and the best.
02:56Whoever knew how to do this taught me everything they know how to do, and I know how to do it all.
03:01When did you get your first guitar?
03:03Well, I think I was about 12. Somebody taught me a couple of chords on the guitar.
03:07If you teach a kid E, A, B, 7, three chords, you can play almost anything.
03:13In fact, my son loved Meat Loaf, you know, and he got a songbook and everything.
03:20I said, Wyatt, these are simple songs.
03:25Let me show you these three chords.
03:27In a month, he was playing every Meat Loaf song on his guitar.
03:31Did your parents do that for you? Were they supportive for your music career?
03:34No, no. My father was anti-music, anti-show business, but my mother was Italian.
03:41She liked my singing. She would always encourage me to sing and perform.
03:45My father passed away when I was 15.
03:48Then I was in charge of my whole life. Nobody could tell me anything.
03:51I remember telling my mother, I did everything for my mother.
03:55I said, don't tell me what to do anymore because I'm not going to do it.
03:57I know what I've got to do, and I took care of her.
04:02She later told me, I didn't raise you, you raised yourself.
04:06I fell in love with the guitar. I'm still in love with the guitar.
04:09What about writing? When did you know you could write?
04:11I don't know what happened to me.
04:13I remember about 1964 thinking maybe I could write a song
04:17because I'd heard simple Woody Guthrie songs.
04:20But they're not so simple.
04:22They take a person who has a lot of empathy and understanding of history
04:27and of common, regular, hard-working people, which I certainly did not have.
04:33But I thought I could write a simple song with a chorus,
04:38which is really what American Pie is.
04:40It's a complicated song with a chorus, but it's still a folk song in that sense.
04:45So bye-bye Miss American Pie
04:50Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
04:56But I had no confidence in myself that way.
04:59The way I had confidence was in myself as a singer.
05:02And I started to play the guitar and started to get good at it.
05:05And then a few songs came. I don't know how to describe it, but it built.
05:11And then I got near Seeger in the late 60s,
05:15and a lot of songwriters were around, and I'm very competitive.
05:19I started thinking, what can I do to really do something that's great?
05:23I came up with this Tapestry album, which had all these songs on it,
05:28and that changed my life.
05:30The next album I did, I was world famous.
05:33You can't imagine what it's like to be world famous in a minute,
05:40and it stays that way.
05:42You go to these countries, and they all want to hear these songs.
05:45They never forget you.
05:46I had three number one records over a period of time,
05:49and a lot of minor records that were pretty famous.
05:52But things started to morph over.
05:55Vinyl ended, and the CD came, and you had a whole dance thing,
06:04which started to take hold in the mid-70s.
06:07But then you had amazing people like Prince and Michael Jackson
06:12coming up and doing an athletic event to perform,
06:17and it was not something we were going to do.
06:20Garth Brooks has me come to Central Park in 1997.
06:24He's been singing my songs for all these years
06:27from the time he was not well known until he was this gigantic star,
06:31and he's running all over that stage, man.
06:34He's like an athletic event again.
06:37And it's not just him.
06:39Madonna, Drake, Tupac Shakur, Josh Groban have all done your songs
06:45multiple times.
06:46It makes me happy that people from all different areas in life
06:50are interested in my ideas.
06:52That I like, because I'm an idea man.
06:55That's what these records are for.
06:57I'm not a consistent hit maker.
06:59I've had some hits.
07:00Some.
07:01Only the most important ones of all time.
07:04I saw Bob Dylan in 1962 sing at a concert
07:10that Pete Seeger brought him there.
07:12It was a hootenanny at Carnegie Hall,
07:14and I saw him sing Hard Rains Are Gonna Fall.
07:17It's hard rains are gonna fall.
07:23I left that hall thinking, man, I never heard anything like that.
07:27Suddenly poetry mattered.
07:29Words really mattered.
07:32And luckily for me, I was able to make some records
07:38and get some stuff, my best work across to people.
07:42It was a miracle, really, because I was very reticent.
07:46I was not anxious to be famous as such.
07:49I didn't mind it.
07:51By the time I had started playing guitar,
07:54I had always had girls chasing me.
07:57And when I would look out there in 1971,
08:00there'd be 5,000 women with their hair parted in the middle
08:03or wearing granny glasses wanting to take me home.
08:07I didn't understand that.
08:09I didn't know what I had gotten myself into.
08:12What do you mean?
08:13I just didn't understand it. It's unprecedented.
08:16If you grew up in my house, my father was a salesman,
08:20and my mother was a very quiet woman
08:22who wasn't a gregarious or a mingler,
08:26one of those loud drinking people.
08:29No, no, my mother was...
08:32Both my parents did not want to be noticed.
08:35Did your mom see you become famous?
08:37Oh, yes.
08:38Yeah, all the way through crying in the 80s.
08:41They were in their 40s when I was born,
08:43and I had a sister who was 15 years older than me.
08:46As a little guy, you know, I was either amusing to them
08:50or I was in the way.
08:51But I would say some things, and one thing I'd say is,
08:54I am going to be famous, and I'm going to buy,
08:57Mom, and I'm going to buy you a mink coat.
09:00Wow, gales of laughter.
09:04I mean, do you know what Donnie said?
09:06He's going to be famous and buy Betty a mink coat.
09:09Well, you know.
09:10I have a picture of my mother in the mink coat
09:13going to Carnegie Hall.
09:15Oh, it's awesome. It's fantastic.
09:17I've reached a lot of people and made them happy,
09:20and that's all, and they have made me happy.
09:23My audience has given me everything, you know,
09:26and they've stood by me
09:28and made me into somebody well-respected
09:32and wealthy and everything else.
09:34So I owe the audience everything for this,
09:37and I'm always aware of that,
09:40and I try to sing well and do the best I can every night.
09:45And I love you so
09:51The people ask me how
09:54I want to talk about And I Love You So.
09:56I wanted to try to write a song like the ones I heard
09:59when I was a little boy on the radio,
10:01the popular music of the 1940s and 50s,
10:05which we were brought up on.
10:06How old were you when you wrote that song?
10:08Oh, 23, 24.
10:10Yeah, I had a good run with that Tapestry album.
10:13I was very inspired,
10:14and I wanted to put so many different kinds of music
10:17because I was interested in so many different things,
10:19and that set the framework for everything that came after.
10:22Some of those songs are just so sad,
10:25and you were so young when you wrote some of them.
10:27How does such a young man, you know,
10:29how do you have those words?
10:31I love ideas, and I've been gifted with
10:35a receptive system of some sort.
10:38I think about it as getting things on my radio,
10:43and I have these ideas,
10:44and sometimes the whole song will come to me
10:47in the morning on my radio,
10:49and then I've got to run to the tape recorder
10:51and try to sing it in there and so forth.
10:53I get it because it's subtle.
10:55There's subtle things that have to be right.
10:58So you really do sing it.
10:59It's not like you write the words down.
11:01You actually sing the melody.
11:03Yeah, I'll sing the words and the melody
11:05right into the tape recorder,
11:07and then I'll get a form going,
11:09and then I'll work back off of it
11:11and start to write words to fit the next part of the form,
11:15but the form is established
11:17that it always has been both together.
11:20Well, I know that you're in love with him
11:24Cause I saw you dancing in the gym
11:28If you see the movie, The Day The Music Died,
11:31you'll see the first part of American Pie.
11:33I had this thing brewing.
11:34I just sang the whole thing right into the tape recorder,
11:36right up through to The Day The Music Died,
11:38the whole slow part in the beginning.
11:40It just came out of me.
11:41I was like a genie out of a bottle.
11:43I said, what is that?
11:44I knew I'd captured, finally, after 10 years,
11:47I'd captured what I wanted to say
11:49about Buddy Holly's plane crash.
11:51I did it.
11:52It took three months, and I thought about it,
11:54came up with this crazy chorus,
11:56and a structure for the song,
11:58and then I came up with this concept,
12:02which is that politics informs music,
12:05and music informs politics,
12:07and that's very normal,
12:08because the same population is producing
12:10the politicians and the musicians,
12:12so they have the same background,
12:14but moving forward.
12:16So as we move forward through the 60s,
12:18this happens, that happens,
12:19the rest of the music changes,
12:21everything gets wilder.
12:22Now I see some very dumb music
12:26and very dumb politicians,
12:28and I'm thinking the theory is right.
12:30I'm thinking to myself, you know,
12:32you're right, you're right,
12:33it's like all these years later,
12:34it still works.
12:35The folk thing was huge.
12:38It's hard to really relate,
12:40because it fizzled when the Beatles came along,
12:45but the Kingston Trio were
12:47an enormously popular group,
12:49and they popularized the idea
12:51of playing guitars and banjos
12:52and singing songs,
12:54and you'd be surprised
12:56that the musical instruments
12:57that came out of people's attics
12:59in those days,
13:00this is Grandma's five-string,
13:02this is Grandpa's guitar,
13:03so I got way into that,
13:05you know, collecting instruments
13:06and learning about them,
13:08Martin guitars, Gibson guitars.
13:10It was a wonderful thing,
13:11because all of us kids
13:12started making our own music,
13:14you know, and you'd run into guys
13:16from Yonkers or whatever,
13:17who were great players,
13:19and you'd play with them,
13:20you know, meet them,
13:21and it sustained me.
13:23I don't know why,
13:24I don't know how it did it,
13:25I was so sure,
13:26and I loved it so much,
13:28that I was so sure I could do this.
13:30You know, I went through all the 60s,
13:32I went to college,
13:33I got out,
13:34I quit school, went back,
13:35all this stuff happened.
13:37I still never shook my belief
13:39that I was,
13:41and I got my degree,
13:42and by this time I knew Seeger,
13:44and I remember getting my degree
13:46and looking up and saying,
13:47well Dad, I did it,
13:49and now I'm going up the river.
13:51And so I went up the river
13:52and played folk music
13:54with Pete Seeger for seven years,
13:56learned a lot.
13:58Starry, starry night
14:02Paint your palette blue and gray
14:06Starry, starry night,
14:07I love that one too.
14:09That was written when I was living
14:12at a place called
14:13the Sedgwick House
14:15in Lenox, Massachusetts.
14:17I was an unknown,
14:19and I got a job singing
14:21in the school system,
14:23the high schools, the colleges,
14:25the grammar schools.
14:27The house was filled
14:28with beautiful antiques,
14:30and I was sitting down
14:32reading this story about Van Gogh,
14:34and I thought,
14:35wow, that would be a really good idea.
14:37I wrote the song,
14:38I sang it in my tape recorder,
14:40I worked on it I think
14:41for a day or two,
14:42and then I had a job singing it,
14:44like at a high school thing,
14:46at night,
14:47and I took the paper with me,
14:50and I sang it to these kids,
14:52and they weren't paying
14:53any attention to me at all.
14:55You know, they were with their dates,
14:57and they were drinking and talking,
14:58and all of a sudden I sang,
14:59starry, starry night.
15:01Quiet.
15:04I thought to myself,
15:05wow, that's beautiful,
15:06that's amazing.
15:07I knew I had something.
15:08Because if you could get them
15:09to shut up and really listen,
15:11which they did,
15:13there's something there.
15:20Alright, let's talk about
15:21American Boys,
15:22a tribute to your rock and roll heroes.
15:24Yes, but it's also a chance
15:26to tell the American public
15:27that American Boys
15:29invented rock and roll.
15:31We invented rock and roll,
15:33we invented jazz,
15:34we invented the blues.
15:36We are Americans
15:37in a very judgmental cycle
15:39where everybody's always
15:41knocking the country.
15:47Thunderstorm Girl,
15:48is that about Paris?
15:50Thunderstorm Girl,
15:51but the Mexicali Gal
15:53is about my girl Paris.
16:01Thunderstorm Girl
16:02could be about her for sure.
16:04She hasn't left me yet though.
16:07Take me through some of the songs,
16:09some more.
16:10I like the Marley song,
16:11Save Yourself.
16:19That again,
16:20is a very important message
16:22for people to realize
16:23that you only have
16:24these moments,
16:25we are alive,
16:26we are miracles.
16:29And we have these moments
16:30to do things.
16:32You know, good things,
16:33bad things,
16:34do nothing, you know.
16:36But we have only this time
16:38to do it.
16:40It's passing quickly.
16:42And we have to do
16:43the right thing, you know.
16:45And I think that
16:46the problem is that
16:48there's all this judging going on
16:50and there's all this extremism
16:54which really closes the mind
16:57to other points of view.
16:59We all have something
17:00we can add, you know,
17:01to the discussion.
17:02There's nothing wrong
17:03in believing in something,
17:05whether it's your religion
17:06or your family or whatever.
17:09Vacant luxury.
17:13Vacant luxury?
17:15That's a sleeper on the record.
17:17That's about everything.
17:18That's about all this excess
17:21that I'm talking about.
17:22You can't live
17:23but in one place at a time.
17:26You know,
17:27and you read about all these people
17:28that have ten homes
17:29and me, I have five.
17:30I love the idea
17:31of what happened to people
17:32during the pandemic,
17:34running away from the cities
17:36and running to rural places,
17:38you know,
17:39that were very much
17:40not of any great interest to them
17:43but only because
17:44they were frightened.
17:45There was a whole big mess
17:47that happened in there
17:48that messed everything up.
17:49And it could happen again.
17:51And we know it
17:52because once one thing
17:53happens once,
17:54you're always waiting
17:55for the other thing to happen.
17:56George Floyd called for his mother.
17:59Oh, the Ballad of George Floyd?
18:01My mother used to come
18:02to me at night
18:03and when I was damn near dying
18:05of pneumonia,
18:08she would give me a bat
18:11to hit the floor with.
18:13She'd say,
18:14if you can't breathe,
18:15I'll come to you.
18:16I would be reluctant to do it
18:17because I'd have to wake her up
18:18at two in the morning, you know.
18:20And I'd be crying and sweating
18:22and the bed would be wet
18:23and everything, you know, sweating.
18:26She'd get alcohol on me
18:28and a cold.
18:29It was awful.
18:30She'd be crying and worrying,
18:32oh, Donnie, what's the matter?
18:33What can I do?
18:34You know, I couldn't do anything.
18:36I heard this guy calling
18:38for his mother and I said,
18:39you know what,
18:40he ain't that dangerous.
18:42You know,
18:43because I know what it's like.
18:44So it just came out of me again.
18:46Just wrote the song
18:47and right there, you know.
18:49Amazing.
18:50Told what it is,
18:51what he said.
18:52He couldn't breathe.
18:53What's your favorite song
18:54to play live?
18:55I like American Boys.
18:56We play it before American Pie
18:58sometimes at the end of the show.
19:00Yeah, American Boys
19:04in that rock and roll.
19:08I like Thunderstorm Girl.
19:10I like the George Floyd song.
19:12I like the Marley song.
19:14I like Truth and Fame.
19:16Life comes at you fast.
19:20That's the price of truth and fame.
19:23We sometimes do a few blues.
19:25I knew a lot of blues guys
19:26growing up and I was so lucky
19:28to be in Greenwich Village
19:29in the 60s.
19:31When, you know,
19:32John Hurt
19:33and all those folk performers.
19:36I knew Josh White.
19:37I mean,
19:38Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry.
19:40I used to work with them
19:42and I got to live with them actually
19:44in Lenox, Massachusetts.
19:45Sometimes I'd be the opening act
19:47and they'd put us in a communal area
19:50and they'd be playing
19:52and I'd listen during the day
19:53and learn blues things from Brownie.
19:57So there's a lot of,
19:58I learned the blues.
20:00Vincent really is a guy of blues
20:03when you think about it.
20:04You know, there's some,
20:05I write a lot of blues songs.
20:07Success ruined me.
20:09You know, I never had
20:10the same concentration.
20:11I never had the same innocence.
20:14I never had the same yearning.
20:16I was successful
20:18and there was pressure on me
20:21to sell seats and sell records
20:24and the whole thing became
20:26an unpleasant exercise
20:29and I continued.
20:30I did some good work
20:31but I never had the adoration
20:33that I had for record making
20:35and even the whole business
20:37as I did in the first,
20:39let's say, three albums I made.
20:41The Don McLean album is important.
20:44It's like a trilogy.
20:45That's my story.
20:46What happens to a lot of people
20:48who are not really performers as such
20:52because performers are
20:53tough people there.
20:55I'm a poet and more of a thinker.
20:57I go with feelings and with romance
21:00and with emotion.
21:01This was different, you know,
21:03so nothing lasts forever.
21:05Well, this album's really good,
21:07so all these years later.
21:08The first three albums really
21:09are me in a nutshell.
21:11What's something no one
21:12knows about you?
21:13Why would I tell them?
21:15Then they'd know.
21:17I'm a Western film expert.
21:19I know about saddlery and horses
21:21and Western history and Western movies
21:23and Western movie stars.
21:26You have horses too, right?
21:27I still have three.
21:29And a lot of cowboy boots.
21:30I heard you have a huge
21:31cowboy boot collection.
21:32Oh, yeah.
21:33I had a big auction,
21:34so I sold a lot of my clothes
21:35and cowboy boots.
21:37I still have some saddlery,
21:39my belt buckle.
21:41I want you to see it.
21:42I love it.
21:43Oh, wow.
21:44That's beautiful.
21:45I want you to see what it says inside.
21:47Don McLean, king of the trail.
21:51This is something I designed
21:53with a great designer named
21:54Ahmaud Khan.
21:56I have a favorite photograph,
21:58and I had him, a modeler,
22:00extract that and put it,
22:02and we created this,
22:04the rider riding right at you
22:06off the buckle.
22:07Oh, wow.
22:08Is that the one you always
22:09take with you?
22:10Yeah, I have several,
22:11but I take this one.
22:14Good luck.
22:15It always keeps me grounded,
22:17I guess.
22:19So great.
22:20It's such an honor to have you
22:21here again with us.
22:23To hear more of this interview,
22:24visit our podcast,
22:25Life Minute TV on iTunes
22:27and all streaming podcast platforms.