Don McLean Quotes
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I like to bring my audience on a journey during my 90 minute concert. I will tell stories every few songs about the creation of a tune etc. and it gives the listener a glimpse inside my songs and then as you get to the last half hour you pick up the pace and work harder and get more into the show. It's all about stagecraft.
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I saw satan laughing with delight The day the music died.
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The kids today all seem to think they should be stars, but I wasn't brought up that way.
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And when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
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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.
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The Byrds flew off the fallout shelter, eight miles high and falling fast.
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I feel like a spinning top or a DreidelThe spinning don't stop when you leave the cradleYou just slow downRound and around this world you goSpinning through the lives of the people you knowWe all slow down.
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Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack sat on a candle stick, cause fire is the devil's only friend.
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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.
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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.
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If something comes up I might write about it, but without an outlet the whole thing winds down.
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It's really hard to teach me anything. I can't read music. I never learned how to read music. I read books about things and try to learn - I don't like to learn from anybody. Later on I would, once I'd get the hang of things. Like I ride horses, I'm good at that, Western riding. I learned all about it reading and studying. I'm always learning about horses, I like that.
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Something touched me deep inside The day the music died.
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When I go on the road now, which is less than before, but still more than I'd like to, I think of myself primarily as a singer. Not a songwriter, not a celebrity, just a man who likes to sing.
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In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful.
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I got my first guitar when I was 16. I'd play for my family and friends, but taking that guitar out there into the wide, wide world wasn't something I ever thought about.
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I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world.
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Everything has become very corporate and very careful. Before we had a real democracy going and there were a lot of freedoms and now there's this terrorism thing that everybody's focused on, which is really a boondoggle in my opinion. It's just an excuse to clamp down on people's free speech. And corporations intimidate people and everybody's gotten intimidated and that's really what it is, and they just keep going along. It's almost like - a little bit like that Charlie Chaplin movie, Modern Times, or 1984, Orwell
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Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, a dream come true, I'll live there til I die.
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My face on every coin engraved, the anarchists are all enslaved. My flag is forever waved, by the grateful people I have saved.
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We all got up to dance. Oh, but we never got the chance!
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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.
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Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
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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