Speaking of music, how many artists and bands are remembered for one song only? Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, Thunderclap Newman’s Something in the Air, You Get What You Give by the New Radicals are some good examples. I have pretty well everything the Cult ever made and I can assure you they made lots of top notch rock but there’s only one of their songs you will ever hear on mainstream radio. Mr Newman’s tune is the only song of his I know and I bought the New Radicals album on the back of the single. It was terrible, absolutely dire. Listening to 6 Music today, I was reminded of one singer who had two great songs to his name. Don McLean.
I suppose his best known tune is American Pie, which is among the greatest songs ever written in terms of both tune and lyrics. Both are equally great. It’s essentially a tour of popular music history, based around the death of Buddy Holly (“This’ll be the day that I die”) with constant references to legends like Bob Dylan and the Beatles. McLean’s version will always stand as the best, but in typically sacrilegious terms, I am terribly fond of – wait for it – Madonna’s interpretation. (To be fair, so smitten do I remain by Madge that I would swoon if she sang from the telephone directory.) Today, I was reminded of McLean’s other classic, Vincent.
Vincent is about the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. I will not pretend to know the first thing about art and artists. However, I have always loved his work. Perhaps, it is my Dutch blood that takes me nearer to the man and his work and why, once I heard McLean’s beautiful lyrics, I had to learn more. I didn’t know then, but know now, that van Gogh created over 2000 pieces of art in his life, including over 800 oil paintings, most of which he painted during his final two years. He died aged 37 after a tragic lifetime of mental illness which culminated in him committing suicide. When I hear McLean’s song start with the line, “Starry, starry night”, more often than not my eyes start to tear over. It’s partly van Gogh’s tragic life and death and partly McLean’s genius, a genius that allowed him to write two of the best songs of all time.
Both American Pie and Vincent were released in 1972 and McLean’s output since then has been sporadic at best. But when you write two such songs, how on earth do you follow them up? I credit McLean for continuing to make new music even though he knows as well as he does that he will never better or even equal what he managed more than four and a half decades ago.
