I intend to die on stage... I have nothing better to do
With a stage show, documentary special and tour in the works, ALEX GREEN talks to Don Mclean about 50 years creating music hits
FIVE decades after its release, Don Mclean’s American Pie remains inescapable. The sweeping epic about politics, youth and rock and roll across the Atlantic has, in the last few years alone, soundtracked important moments in TV series Stranger Things and Hollywood blockbuster Black Widow, and is boxer Tyson Fury’s victory tune.
“It’s used in a million different ways because it is non-specific – because it is eternal in that way,” the New York State-born singersongwriter says of the 1971 song.
“I did not write something about a specific time. Bob Dylan wrote about Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, the boxer, and so on...
“And I’ve written about Van Gogh and George Reeves. But this is a different thing. It’s the soul of the country. And the soul has never changed.”
Don, known to fans as the American Troubadour or King of the Trail, is marking the song and accompanying album’s 50th anniversary with a world tour (including UK dates) and a retrospective documentary. A stage show is also in the works.
The milestone has prompted many to look again at his legacy, leading in August to Don, 76, being given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He says the day was especially poignant given his life-long obsession with cowboy movie stars such as Ken Maynard, Buck Jones and William Boyd, many of who have their own stars on the trail.
“That was certainly a high point in my career,” he recalls excitedly.
“And I’ve had a few nice things happen to me in my life – lots of them actually – but this is particularly wonderful for me because I’m a music and film aficionado.
Don is prone to grand, sweeping statements about music and art and this extends to tales of his youth in New Rochelle, New York State.
“My mother always said: ‘Donnie, I didn’t raise you, you raised yourself’. “I had my own way of doing everything. And I was by myself most of the time.”
“I realised the one thing that mattered to me more than singing, writing songs, more than being Don Mclean – anything – was making records and albums.
“So I developed that very young and it was really independent of everybody I knew. Nobody was in my world at all.
“Everybody else was basically white kids who were going to grow up to be working stiffs and good pillars of the community and church-goers and all that stuff.
“I wasn’t any of that. I didn’t want any of that.”
That yearning eventually led to his second studio album, American Pie, being released in October 1971.
It was a huge success but the title track – inspired by the plane crash death of rock and roll great Buddy Holly – went stratospheric, reaching number one in the US and many other countries around the world including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
“If you write about specific things in a universal way then you have created something that’s universal and can last forever,” he offers.
Don says a song is simply a vehicle. “I’m telling an epic tale of rock and roll and politics and people’s rights – people’s demands,” he declares. People in the street wanting things.”
After 18 months without live performance, Mclean is back on the road and his forthcoming world tour can not come quick enough.
“As I get older, I can sing well and I have a lot of songs that people know and love.
“I’m from another time and I like to go out there and show those young people how it’s done – show them how it sounds when it’s right.
“I’m sure that is what Paul Mccartney does. It is certainly what The Rolling Stones still do.
“We still hold a torch of some sort, which is valuable to people and they love it. They really do.”
After a dramatic pause, he adds: “I intend to die on stage. I have nothing else better to do.”
Tickets for Don Mclean’s 50th Anniversary of American Pie 2022 UK Tour are available at donmclean.com
I’m telling an epic tale of rock and roll and politics and people’s rights... Don on his music