MET A PIE MAN – Don McLean & AMERICAN PIE

neilsambrook@btinternet.com July 11, 2025 1 Comment

Emerging from the East Coast folk scene of the early 1960s, which by virtue made him a protégé of Pete Seeger, Don McLean (born Rochelle, New York 2/10/1945), sailed on a mid-decade slipstream after the initial wave had carried those such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter Yarrow (who found fame with Peter, Paul and Mary) to widespread success.

After building a sizeable home city following, McLean took the well trodden path for the minstrel music-maker, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival and prestigious folk haunts such as The Cellar Door in Washington. His growing popularity eventually led him to L.A. music Mecca The Troubadour – the arrival of McLean on the West Coast coinciding with a fast-developing, late-60s singer-songwriter scene from which artists such as Joni Mitchell and James Taylor had already risen to prominence.

While based in the Los Angeles vicinity, McLean performed countless auditions and sent demos to a host of record companies, later putting the combined total of both at an exact 72. But just when it appeared he was destined to make no headway whatsoever, his efforts found favour with the recently formed Mediarts label.

They proved a short-lived enterprise, but existed long enough for McLean to create ‘Tapestry‘ (October 1970) that received positive notices from the few reviewers it reached, but cut little ice in regard to sales. It would, however, gain fresh impetus in the wake of its successor reaching a worldwide audience, becoming best known for the tracks ‘Castles in the Air’, an early expression of support for environmentalism and ‘And I Love You So‘ that in 1973 became a worldwide hit for Perry Como.

These two songs in particular reflected his primary songwriting themes, namely quietly expressed political concerns and romantic balladry, McLean writing, in terms of lyrical liberalism attached to acoustic guitar-based melodicism, in a vein not far removed from fellow New Yorker Paul Simon.

His debut set had not long been in circulation when Mediarts were swallowed up by United Artists who agreed to back a follow-up. Returning to New York in order to record, McLean joined forces with producer Ed Freeman and spent the late spring of 1971 cutting tracks for his next release – and in evoking a teenage memory which he develops into a critical thesis of rock and roll from the late-50s to its early-70s vestige, wrote a defining song of the decade.

The album not only had a resplendent opening song – the title track of ‘AMERICAN PIE‘ (October 1971) also turning its creator into a household name.

Beginning with the vivid imagery of McLean in his youth delivering newspapers carrying the sad news late singer Buddy Holly had been killed in a plane crash, (Holly dying in a tragedy that also claimed the lives of other 50s stars Richie Valens and the Big Bopper on February 3 1959), McLean expands a narrative full of resonant symbolism that alludes to contemporary cultural icons (James Dean, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Byrds, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin), figureheads of political movements (Lenin, Marx), complete with religious references (father, son, holy ghost).

But despite vast creative accomplishments in the rock field through the decade that followed, McLean describes the passing of Holly as ‘The day the music died.’ While rock, to give it an all-encompassing title, can be said to have thrived through the 1960s, the writer makes a case for the innocence of pop perishing with Holly, songwriters in the years that followed plying their lyrics with allusions to politics, drugs, class and war, this new breed of wordsmith more inclined to reference rebellion than romance.

Indeed, through its near eight and half minute running time, ‘American Pie‘ feels less an anthem to glorious achievements and more elaborate allegory for the strange, undulating, sometimes disconcerting journey popular music had undertaken during the ’60s. Dizzying levels of creativity there may have been, but with the 1970s on the near horizon at the counter-culture zenith of Woodstock festival in August 1969, McLean found those who had come of age during the period were adrift and labouring under a false sense of enlightened attainment.

‘And there we were all in one place/A generation lost in space/With no time left to start again.‘

Hung upon a framework of piano and acoustic guitar, the melody ebbs and flows through the rich collage of images McLean draws upon. His depictions are never more fulsome when alluding to the disastrous Altamont festival staged just outside San Francisco as 1969 drew to a close when concert attendee Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death a few feet from the stage by a member of the Hells Angel entourage who had been hired to provide security.

The incident took place while headline act the Rolling Stones, a group renowned for rebellious behaviour, were performing, McLean pointedly infusing the words with allusions to Stones songs such as ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’

‘So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick/Jack Flash sat on a candlestick/’Cause fire is the devil’s only friend/And as I watched him on the stage/My hands were clenched in fists of rage/No angel born in Hell/Could break that Satan’s spell/And as the flames climbed high into the night/To light the sacrificial rite/I saw Satan laughing with delight.’

It is a rousing, well crafted piece and no matter how familiar ‘American Pie’ has become, the sheer intent of McLean in undertaking a lyrical exercise so ambitious in scope and design can only be marveled at, the conviction with which he delivers the piece adding to the gripping ambience.

Helped in no small way by the ‘So bye, bye, Miss American Pie/Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry’ refrain of the chorus, ‘American Pie’ became a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic (U.S.1/U.K. 2) and rather than edit the track for release on 45, the first and second half of the song constitute the A and B sides. It brought him to the attention of a massive mainstream audience, but would virtually define his subsequent career, the only other composition to have anything approaching similar renown being ‘Vincent‘ – a moving eulogy for Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, which as a single actually outsold ‘American Pie.’

Included with the title track on side one of the album, McLean presents his admiration of the artist whose tortured state of mind led to him committing suicide at the age of 37 in 1890.

McLean on acoustic guitar is accompanied by subtle string arrangement and understated marimba work, the lyric skillfully and with great poignancy capturing the beauty contained within the paintings but also the despair of a troubled life:

‘Starry, starry night/Flaming flowers that brightly blaze/Swirling clouds in violet haze/Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue/Colors changing hue/Morning fields of amber grain/Weathered faces lined in pain/Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.’

McLean conveys his respect with a deeply affecting vocal and even when articulating the sad end to life Van Gogh chose for himself, the words and phrasing are moving without being maudlin:

‘For they could not love you/But still your love was true/And when no hope was left in sight/On that starry, starry night/You took your life, as lovers often do/But I could’ve told you Vincent/This world was never meant for/One as beautiful as you.’

Elsewhere on side one ‘Till Tomorrow‘ and ‘Winter Wood‘ are similar in structure to ‘Vincent’, the former asking questions in relation to what the free-thinking, liberated ’60s actually achieved, McLean unsure if hopeful idealism amounted to mere aspiration rather than action:

‘I’ve been wanting to ask you/Where has all the love gone/And what have we become/Storm clouds full of thunder/Move silent as they drum/And when they’re gone/we’ll be fine, till tomorrow.’

On the latter, first side closer ‘Winter Wood‘, he is found with a more cheery outlook, his demeanor enhanced by a romantic entanglement:

‘You are as natural as the night/And all that springs from you is good/And the children born beneath your light/Are like the birds on Winterwood.’

Sequenced before ‘Winter Wood‘ and featuring noted jazz pianist Warren Bernhardt performing the main accompaniment, in ‘Crossroads‘ McLean is looking for hope to offset disappointments that have come his way. The questioning is studious but answers remain elusive, the only true revelation a sense of going around in circles:

‘You know I’ve heard about people like me/But I never made the connection/They walk one road to set them free/And find they’ve gone the wrong direction/But there’s no need for turning back/Cause all roads lead to where I stand/And I believe I’ll walk them all/No matter what I may have planned.’

Side two opener ‘Empty Chairs‘ finds McLean ruefully and with no lack of poetic resonance reflecting on a love affair that has come to grief, their parting of the ways something he has not yet fully grasped:

‘And I wonder if you know/That I never understood/That although you said you’d go/Until you did, I never thought you would.’

So captivating is the way he delivers this serene folk ballad and some telling lines contained therein (‘And the fragrance of your flowers rest beneath my head/A sympathy bouquet left with a love that’s dead’), the background strings arrive barely noticed. They do, however, provide an emotive backdrop when McLean takes the song to its achingly sad conclusion:

‘Morning comes and morning goes with no regret/And evening brings the memories I can’t forget/Empty rooms that echo as I climb the stairs/And empty clothes that drape and fall on empty chairs.’

The boisterous ‘Everybody Loves Me, Baby‘ ushers in a significant change of pace, McLean represented as a one man Simon and Garfunkel in one of their more upbeat offerings.

Stylistically speaking the closest in texture to ‘American Pie‘, the chunky piano lines added to the background cheers and chatter give the track a spontaneous feel as McLean has some fun at the expense of his own ego:

‘Fortune has me well in hand/Armies wait at my command/My gold lies in a foreign land buried deep beneath the sand/The angels guide my ev’ry tread, my enemies are sick or dead/But all the victories I’ve led haven’t brought you to my bed/You see, everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?/Won’t ya tell me what did I do to offend you?’

Such is the ebullience – McLean affording himself a chuckle in delivering the line, ‘And my face on ev’ry coin engraved/The anarchists are all enslaved’ – the piece at times veers close to a Beach Boys pastiche, the writer sounding as surprised as anyone by his own witty word play.

Apparently inspired by a handbill McLean was given while walking through Times Square in New York advertising the services of a fortune teller who gives the song its title, ‘Sister Fatima‘ is a charming number, full of cityscape impressionism. The writer appears intrigued yet also amused at the belief some of his fellow citizens invest in spiritualism, or more pertinently, this particular spiritualist:

‘Sister Fatima has God-given powers/On 42nd street in a shop that sells flowers/Is her palace/Come and be healed/She knows all your business, your health and your ills/She’ll counsel your weddings, divorces, and wills/For full restoration, five dollars an hour/With each consultation, a free holy flower/If she likes you, why, you can have two.’

As he gently picks at his acoustic guitar, McLean ponders whether the clairvoyant has a heightened level of awareness or is simply a charlatan, the closing line sent into the world by a vocal more tongue-in-cheek than trusting:

‘I’m a servant of fate in this garden of truth/A humble recruit of the taffeta booth/Where all things are known, but few are revealed/Where sins are forgotten, and sickness is healed/For five dollars/The flower is free.’

For any songwriter who cut their teeth during the ’60s, especially those with a folk background, an anti-war protest song was nigh-on obligatory, McLean voicing his opposition to conflict with ‘The Grave‘ – a suitably sombre piece depicting the battlefield death of a young American soldier.

With the fighting in Vietnam still raging at the time, the writer creates a harrowing portrait of a frightened combatant, not much more than a youth, aware given the carnage around him his time on earth is coming to an end.

This haunting composition is cinematic in sweep, (‘And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers/Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry/And deep in the trench he waited for hours/As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die‘), McLean displaying a sharp eye for drama in presenting the full horror of battle:

‘But the silence of night was shattered by fire/As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air/And one after another his comrades were slaughtered/In morgue of Marines, alone standing there/He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear/”They can’t let me die! They can’t let me die here!’

With the story told in retrospect we know as listeners he does not survive, the final journey being from one hole in the ground to another, his broken body taken out of the trench where he died in violent circumstances to a final resting place surrounded by tranquility – the lyrics astute in showing the contrast between the two as the first verse reappears as the last:

‘The grave that they dug him had flowers/Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colours/And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone/He’s gone.’

To close the album, McLean, playing banjo, offers a brief run through of folk standard ‘Babylon‘, the multi-tracked backing vocals of the artist giving off hymn-like connotations.

Based on Psalm 137 of the Bible and at its core lamenting notions of exile and displacement, the rendition can also be taken as a metaphor for what McLean saw as the lost innocence of the 1960s.

Indeed, the record effectively ends where it began with the overriding notions of the title-track, another song where he was not adverse to using religious overtones (‘Did you write the book of love/And do you have faith in God above/If the Bible tells you so?), when conjuring imagery.

Initially the album neither sold well or met with positive reviews, Rolling Stone awarding it three stars (from five), while describing it as ‘sanctimonious‘ – which naturally prompted a smile from your genial host at SAMTIMONIOUS.com – while noted New York rock scribe Robert Christgau could barely hide his disdain with a C- mark on his renowned A-D rating system.

But negative notices counted for nothing once ‘American Pie‘ and then ‘Vincent‘ began making inroads into the singles charts. As a result the album began notching up huge sales and on reaching number one in the U.S. (where it stayed for a month) and stopping one place short of top spot in the U.K. went on to sell over a million copies before 1972 was out.

Given ‘American Pie‘ became such a massive commercial, if not critical triumph, (in that respect it is an album that has grown into appreciation, latter-day appraisals being far more complimentary), there was something ironic about the follow-up ‘Don McLean‘ (October 1972) being well-received but making none of the chart impact of its predecessor.

On the back of his ‘American Pie’ L.P. in the early months of 1972 it seemed entirely probable Don McLean would become a key songsmith in articulating personal and political sensibilities through the years ahead. Yet in truth McLean had already reached his high water mark, not returning to the upper reaches of the U.K. charts for another eight years and then with a cover of ‘Crying’ previously a 1961 hit for Roy Orbison.

Instead it would be the likes of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne who proved themselves most adept at making sense of the 1970s, McLean, in having the last word on the ’60s, inadvertently making it the definitive eight minutes of his career – although as signature songs go ‘American Pie‘ is a beauty, making people smile, a long, long time ago.

DON McLEAN – AMERICAN PIE (Released October 8 1971):

American Pie/Till Tomorrow/Vincent/Crossroads/Winter Wood/Empty Chairs/Everybody Love Me, Baby/Sister Fatima/The Grave/Babylon;

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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book: