Posted on 03/26/2019 8:26:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
McLean talks with MarketWatch about the only two stocks he owns, the meaning of ‘American Pie,’ and why he’s never had an assistant.
In 1971, Don McLean released the album “American Pie,” and the title song became one of the most famous — and successful — ever made. It came out at a time of major political and social upheaval in America, and captured a feeling of loss. The song runs for over eight minutes, and is No. 5 on the list of best songs of the 20th century. Now 73, McLean talked with MarketWatch about his most famous song, and a wide range of other topics, including money, stardom, and the music business today.
McLean says he’s made $150 million in his career, and that his degree in finance (from Iona College in 1968) and his smart business manager helped him make the money last — and grow. He looks to make 6% a year on his money, so he owns a lot of bonds, and only two stocks. McLean, who has been married twice and has two children, hates the idea of being in debt, and buys everything with cash — including the four homes he’s owned.
He’s curious about the markets and at one point in the interview said, “I want to ask you something. In a relatively short time, the stock market has gone from like 18000 to 25000. Don’t people think that’s a little strange? It’s shocking.” He then said: “When I grew up, gold was $35 an ounce and pegged to the dollar. Everything was slow and steady. Government bonds under President Carter, if you went out 30 years you could get like 20%! Do you remember that? Imagine getting 20%, locking that in for 30 years? I’d do that in a minute.”
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
I wasn’t speaking to the merits of the song, I was only trying to correct your misunderstanding of the meaning of the term “one-hit wonder” though one would think the name was pretty self-explanatory.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/908/what-is-don-mcleans-song-american-pie-all-about/
February made me shiver: Holly’s plane crashed February 3, 1959.
Them good ole boys were … singing “This’ll be the day that I die”: Holly’s hit “That’ll Be the Day” had a similar line.
The Jester sang for the King and Queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean: ID of K and Q obscure. Elvis and Connie Francis (or Little Richard)? John and Jackie Kennedy? Or Queen Elizabeth and consort, for whom Dylan apparently did play once? Dean’s coat is the famous red windbreaker he wore in Rebel Without a Cause; Dylan wore a similar one on “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan” album cover.
With the Jester on the sidelines in a cast: On July 29, 1966 Dylan had a motorcycle accident that kept him laid up for nine months.
While sergeants played a marching tune: The Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
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: Mick Jagger, Altamont.
I met a girl who sang the blues/ And I asked her for some happy news/ But she just smiled and turned away: Janis Joplin OD’d October 4, 1970.The three men I admire most/ The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost/ They caught the last train for the coast: Major mystery. Holly, Bopper, Valens? Hank Williams, Elvis, Holly? JFK, RFK, ML King? The literal tripartite deity? As for the coast, could be the departure of the music biz for California. Or it simply rhymes, a big determinant of plot direction in pop music lyrics (which may also explain “drove my Chevy to the levee”).
Well played ...
I’m not sure how you extrapolated that reply from what I wrote
Im sorry if it confused you
My point was that the day the music died was sad for many of us.
One of the best concerts I've ever been to.
Hilarious. Financial genius American Pie is longing for the days of the worst inflation that America experienced since the Civil War.
That 20% was the nominal interest rate because we were experiencing double-digit inflation.
The real return he was getting would have been around 3%, if that. A "normal" interest rate tacked on to a huge inflation premium.
I was two when Holly died
But I do appreciate his unique contribution
And I was friends to a degree for a couple years with Waylon and no i never asked him about it
1971 I was barely 14
It was released in autumn I think.
We all knew it was about Holly but we didn’t think of the other allegories you pointed out
It was an AM hit oddly and man did it get rotated
And I listened mostly by then to underground progressive FM....102.9 WJDX
what became in 6-7 years album oriented rock and classic rock
Original FM rock born late 60s had pretentiousn DJs who spoke in low voices like the guy used to have who did the Pontiac Bonneville commercials before movies at the cinema late 60s
He looked like manuelito from high chapparel
He was cool
So was the Bonneville...hard to fathom now
McClean really hit the era of the singer songwriter .
Listening to underground FM music in the late sixties was one thing.
Drop a tab of Orange Owsley, and it was like receiving instructions.
Tuned in, turned on, .... never dropped out.
Ben Shapiro and Elisha Krauss had morning drive on Salem Media’s flagship radio station, KRLA in Los Angeles.
Two smug conservative purists who were born during Reagan’s administration, yet despite having experienced Reagan from the vantage point of Underoos and Big Wheels, they managed to become the Commissars of what is allowable conservative thought.
And thinking that Trump is acceptable put you into the Gulag of Unacceptable Thought.
Apparently a good portion of the KRLA audience thought otherwise, and these two yahoos left for the Land Of NeverTrump Holiness.
Excellent analysis.
“OK, let’s get into they psychology with Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism Revisited:”
I’m always impressed when someone here remembers Erik von K-L.
A great thinker from the era when National Review was itself great.
Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ is a heck of a lot easier to decipher. Hard to tell if McLean’s obscure lyrics actually referred to something or was just poetic imagery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
Weird Al is always the best.
folk music wanted so much freedom that when it came to politics, their utopist vision easily became a tool of the left
Their song, “I dig rock and roll music,” was a blatant shriek, and hardly required reading “between the lines.”
The youth always have utopian vision, until they grow up. About 20% never grow up or fail to understand the world has challenges, hence today's kids needing safe zones from reality. I'm convinced that about 15% of the population cannot handle change and change threatens their utopia. I recently saw a 2 1/2 hour show on CSN&Y, they were rocked by the reality of change and bad things, the RFK and MLK and Manson murders really forced them to see the real world and evil that ruins their utopias, they were crushed. Just like today's kids realizing they have to work, hear different opinions, pay off debts, it rocks their utopia of Mom and Dad paying for everything and them getting participation awards, never having to deal with a loss, until they do and they break.
Leftist utopia requires a population of snowflakes stripped of ambition and individualism. The USSR had eighty years to create the new “Soviet Man” and was unable to change human nature.
The genius of capitalism is like ju-jitsu. Rather than suppress human nature, it takes advantage of it. Human desire to accumulate stuff and stand out are encouraged, with government taking a slice of product generated.
Government slice has become onerous, but human nature remains human nature. Socialism can’t change that, but it can make resisting collectivization a slog. Eventually, the cycle completes and the Tree of Liberty gets watered.
But that was then.
Back in 1972, a radio DJ named Bob Dearborn did an in-depth analysis of the lyrics. He currently has his broadcast posted on his web site here. The link to the mp3 is a couple screens down on the page:
http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/pie.html
This is the direct link to the mp3 of the broadcast:
http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/audio/bobpie.mp3
It’s a great listen if you like the song. This guy has a credible explanation for what everything in the song means short of one or two lines.
Wiki says he was divorced in 2016 and this:
The end of the marriage saw Don McLean arrested for domestic violence.[58][59] However, the charges were dismissed one year later as a result of his abiding by the terms of a plea agreement.[60][61]
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