American sigh…

New young love for Seventies legend, but old magic sadly lacking in his latest album

At 72, Don Mclean has one of the most prized songbooks and enduring careers of his generation and has sold 40 gold and platinum albums. Even Madonna is among stars who have covered his classic Seventies hit American Pie.

Now his new album, Botanical Gardens, is full of (barely dignified) musing over young love. But he’s keen to stress it wasn’t inspired by new girlfriend, Playboy model Paris Dylan, 24 – and was finished before they even met. “Someone wrote in a review that she was involved with the writing of the songs. That’s false,” he says. “And I don’t want you to make that mistake.” Er, sure Don.

Divorced from wife Patrisha in 2016, six months after admitting a domestic violence charge, he eagerly posts pictures of himself and Paris on social media – but refuses to discuss their relationship. “It’s out there, but I don’t talk about it. Sorry.”

Her arrival in Don’s life, however, appears timely when you listen to Botanical Gardens. The album’s songs are full of the hope of new love just around the corner.

Is Don getting all clairvoyant in his later years? “I know things are gonna happen before they happen, and that’s all I can tell ya,” Mclean claims.“i did not know this person when I wrote all those songs. I knew something was happening in my life. And that’s what that album really is about.

“So have fun thinking about that.” Or perhaps not, given the effect the album had on me. Maybe it is best to remember

Don’s good stuff – like the anti war number The Grave which George Michael sung in protest at the

Iraq War. “I was very proud he used my song,” says Don. “I thought he did a brilliant job.”

He’s also proud the late great Roy Orbison called him “the voice of the American century”.

He says: “I’ve had so many wonderful things said about me in my life by people I respect, that it’s inoculated me to some degree against pain when a reviewer doesn’t like something. I think ‘well, Roy would like it’ or ‘Elvis would like it’. That’s enough for me.” Neither are here to prove his point – but I’m sure it’s true, Mr Mclean, I’m sure it is.

■■Botanical Gardens out now. UK tour starts April 29

’Things said about me by people I respect inoculate me against painful reviews’