Don McLean

Don McLean is an American singer-songwriter who achieved international fame with his 1971 song “American Pie,” an epic and often inscrutable chronicle of a slice of American life in the middle of the 20th century. McLean has released more than 20 albums since his debut in 1970.

Early life and career

McLean was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1945 to Elizabeth and Donald McLean. As a boy, he delivered the local newspaper, an experience he would later use in one of his most famous lyrics:

February made me shiver
with every paper I’d deliver

He has said that his childhood was marked by tragedy: His father, Donald McLean, died when he was 15 years old. Don McLean’s sister, Betty Anne, 15 years his senior, was an alcoholic and drug addict. McLean described her cycles of sobering up, leaving home, and then relapsing and returning to live with the family. “That’s why I’m a blue guy I guess,” McLean told The Guardian in 2020. “All my stuff is about loss—and a certain kind of psychic pain. I’ve never really been happy.”

McLean demonstrated musical talent as a child and would often put on shows for his family. One of the performers he idolized most was Buddy Holly. He later came to love folk music; he said the 1957 album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall was pivotal for him. During the mid- to late 1960s, he performed at clubs and colleges along the East Coast and earned a degree in business administration. His first album, Tapestry, was released in 1970.

The making of “American Pie”

McLean wrote “American Pie” when he was 24. The ballad is full of disparate images and characters. At the center is an event that occurred when McLean was 13: the February 3, 1959, plane crash that killed Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (“The Big Bopper”) in Iowa. McLean has said the event represented for him the loss of the innocence of early rock and roll—or, as he wrote, “the day the music died.” More broadly the song deals with turmoil in American culture and politics in the 1960s. Fans, however, have debated endlessly the meaning of individual phrases and verses. Many have speculated that there are references to the Vietnam War, John F. Kennedy, Charles Manson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elvis Presley, and the Beatles, among other figures and events.

McLean has steadfastly refused to yield answers to many of the references. For example, many people have assumed that the lines

And while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown

are a reference to the emergence of Bob Dylan (the jester) over Presley (the king). But McLean has refused to confirm that, even when asked by Dylan’s son. McLean has shared some insights into the iconic lyrics. The song is “very confusing,” he told Forbes, but this was intentional on McLean’s part. “There’s something left to your imagination, to allow for it to run away a bit,” he said. He did offer up that the reference to “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is meant to be literal. But the line “While Lennin [sic] read a book on Marx” is a play on names that refers to both Vladimir Lenin and John Lennon.

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McLean recorded the song in 1971, and it first aired on New York radio stations to mark the closing of the Fillmore East, a historic concert venue. The song was released later that year on the album American Pie and spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard chart. For almost 50 years, the nearly nine-minute song was the longest to reach number one on Billboard’s Top 100. It was eclipsed in 2021 by Taylor Swift’s more than 10-minute version of “All Too Well.”

Other notable songs

McLean also had a major hit with the song “Vincent,” about Vincent van Gogh, which was the second single released off the American Pie album. In 1971 the singer Lori Lieberman saw McLean perform in Los Angeles and was inspired to scribble down a poem on a napkin. Lieberman has said that became the basis for the song “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” which became a number-one hit when Roberta Flack recorded it the following year. Lieberman never received a writing credit, and her claim has been disputed, but both Flack and McLean say they believe her. McLean also wrote “And I Love You So,” which became a hit for Perry Como. He has continued to release albums and tour, although he has never produced anything approaching the success of “American Pie.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

Personal life and legacy

McLean has been married twice. He was married to artist Carol Sauvion from 1969 to 1972. His second marriage, to Patrisha McLean—with whom he had two children—lasted for 29 years. The couple divorced in 2016, after Patrisha McLean accused him of domestic abuse. Don McLean was charged, pleaded guilty, and paid a fine, but his lawyer said that he did so not because he was guilty but “to provide closure for his family and keep the whole process as private as possible.” His daughter, Jackie McLean, told Rolling Stone in 2021 that her father had mentally abused her throughout her life.

McLean’s enduring fame is inextricably linked with the enduring nature of “American Pie.” But his relationship with the song seems as complex as the song itself. In 2020 he told The Guardian:

“Writing a song that everyone on Earth knows shouldn’t make you resentful. But you better have a lot inside you—because it’s gonna get sucked out.”