Don McLean was Born October 2, 1945. He is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie"
McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
To mark the 50th anniversary of the song, McLean is scheduled to perform a 35-date tour through Europe, starting in Wales and ending in Austria, in 2022.
Don McLean said that he wrote the refrain, of American Pie and 3 months later, he wrote the rest of the song in1 hour.
"The day the music died" refers to the plane crash in 1959 in Iowa during a snowstorm, that killed early rock and roll star Buddy Holly, who was McLean’s childhood music hero.
The song American Pie - reflects the deep cultural changes and profound disillusionment and loss of innocence of his entire generation.
“So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry”
(Chevy refers to a car Chevrolet popular at the time - a levee is a quay or a dike an embankment along a river to control floods, in any case, a place where you'd expect to find water.)
In 1971 Don McLean released "Vincent” which is a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. It is often erroneously titled after its opening refrain, "Starry, Starry Night", a reference to Van Gogh's 1889 painting.
McLean said the following about the genesis of the song:
"In the autumn of 1970 I had a job singing in the school system, playing my guitar in classrooms. I was sitting on the veranda one morning, reading a biography of Van Gogh, and suddenly I knew I had to write a song arguing that he wasn't crazy. He had an illness and so did his brother Theo. This makes it different, in my mind, to the garden variety of 'crazy' – because he was rejected by a woman [as was commonly thought]. So, I sat down with a print of Starry Night and wrote the lyrics out on a paper bag."
