Don McLean Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Funny, Music, Song

  56 Copy quote

• Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?

  Don McLean

  Hippie, Believe, Rocks

  Song: American Pie, Album: American Pie

  21 Copy quote

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

  Don McLean

  Needs, Deeds, Adages

  Song: Dreidel, Album: Don McLean

  14 Copy quote

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

  Don McLean

  Rock And Roll, Long, Use

  Song: Miss American Pie, Album: American Pie

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, War, Men

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Song: Castles in The Air

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  "American Pie". Song by Don McLean, 1971.

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  Don McLean (2008). “The Legendary Songs of Don McLean (Songbook)”, p.82, Hal Leonard Corporation

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Real, Thinking, People

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Song: Vincent

  61 Copy quote

• 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

  Song: Tapestry

  6 Copy quote

• 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, World

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Song: Fashion Victim, Album: Starry Starry Night

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Song, Baby

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Mean, People, Perfect

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Writing, School

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Song: Tapestry

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  "Going for a song: American Pie manuscript to be auctioned" by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, www.theguardian.com. February 13, 2015.

  7 Copy quote

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

  Don McLean

  Reality, Men, Land

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Princess, People

  4 Copy quote

• Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

  Don McLean

  Dry, American Pie, Chevy

  "American Pie" (song) (1971)

  20 Copy quote

• The society that produced The Who, The Stones, Dylan, Paul McCartney and later on people, like myself, is over. The materialistic society that produces these kinds of bombastic performances that don't have any value or musical meaning, is very conspicuous, look at me, I'm rich, dig my brand. That's what missing, Bob Dylan made us feel worthy, I try to do the same thing. Respect for the audience with music that is meaningful and soulful. Go for what moves you and not necessarily what you think will be commercial.

  Don McLean

  Meaningful, Moving, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

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