Don McLean, the one-man creative force behind the hit songs “American Pie,” “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night),” “And I Love You So,” “Castles within the Air,” and other songs, albums, tours and projects, shared thoughts about artificial intelligence, music, creativity and authenticity with Fox News Digital in a recent phone interview amid his current “American Pie” Fiftieth-anniversary tour.
“Once you speak about artificial intelligence right away — I’m unsure what meaning in the meanwhile, but clearly it’s evolving,” he said from California, where he was making several tour stops after getting back from concert performances in Australia.
“With any technology, you’ve got an inflection point where it takes off,” said McLean.
“Today, AI has merely presented itself — however the inflection point hasn’t been reached yet. And that’s the scary part.”
He added, “I also wish to say that before a type of artificial intelligence was in use — and it’s been in use for a few years — the tape recorder and the photographic lens were each honest. In the event you took an image, that was the way in which something looked.”
Nonetheless, in current times, he said, “you’ve got all this photoshopping and massaging and whatnot, so now the camera lies. And the tape recorder is similar way.”
And “what you’re hearing shouldn’t be the actual singers in the primary place,” said McLean.
“So we’ve had a type of artificial intelligence that’s been subliminal, but now swiftly it’s in our faces. Just as with computers and smartphones and all of the things that we’re messing around with — and today, we are able to’t be without our phones, or we’ll go from zero to 120, flipped out. You realize?”
McLean also said bluntly regarding artificial intelligence, “I don’t think a pc could possibly make worse music than what I hear on the radio today.”
He also said, “I actually think computer-made music goes to be an exquisite release from what I hear on the radio. People need some artificial intelligence because they’ve lost their regular intelligence to be able to put in writing songs, , and make music.”
He went on, “One way or the other, that ability has been diluted, I suppose, by all this silly information and all these other things. People can’t concentrate.”
Said McLean about songwriting and creativity, “You have got to be in a position to concentrate, and I mean seriously concentrate, with a view to hear a melody and create a song and create an idea.”
In his own case, he said, “I actually have little movies that come into my head. And all I do is write in regards to the film that I’m seeing, and the words come to me. I’m more of an inventor, really, than a songwriter. Every song that I write is different from the others.”
Added McLean, “‘Wonderful Baby’ shouldn’t be like ‘Dreidel,’ and ‘Dreidel’ shouldn’t be like ‘Vincent,’ and ‘Vincent’ shouldn’t be like ‘Prime Time,’ and on and on. They’re all different — really different. They use different musical forms. They use a unique type of lyric writing. In order that’s my thing. That’s my standard.”
Yet today, he said, “How are you going to tell the difference between the songs? It’s identical to a rhythm section and a mindless chorus that goes on time and again, and it’s not very melodic. And I’ve been saying this, actually, on stage, that I can’t imagine a pc that may’t make better music than this.”
Here’s more of Fox News Digital’s in-depth conversation with McLean on these and related topics.
Fox News Digital: So while you say that to your audience from the stage, what type of response do you get from people?
Don McLean: My audience knows that I can say almost anything they usually don’t hold me to any kind of ordinary, like I’m alleged to say something. I don’t care what anybody thinks, anyway. I just say what I need to say.
I at all times have done that. I say what I observe.
But there’s a type of concomitance here. And I began to see this within the Seventies, once I wrote the song “Prime Time.” Every part, all information and experience, was going to come back through the tv.
Well, that has happened. Today, it’s coming through the laptop, the TV, the phone — ? Screens. It’s coming through our screens. That’s what happened.
I said this in my song “Prime Time,” too, but I believe it’s made the population crazy. I actually think individuals are losing their marbles. And this AI comes at a nasty time for that because individuals are all on edge anyway. They don’t know what to take into consideration all of the things they used to know what to take into consideration. That was sentence! (laughs)
They don’t know what they’re alleged to make of all this — and particularly young people. And I believe that’s probably why quite a lot of them are only pondering, “You realize, screw it, I’m just gonna have time, and I don’t wish to work and I don’t care a few profession because I probably won’t live long enough to have one.”
It’s a type of nihilistic pondering, ? And it’s all playing right into a very imperfect storm, it seems to me.
And I don’t mean to bring this up, and I don’t wish to hurt people’s feelings or anything, but to me, the thought of getting to debate what a person or a girl is today — now you’re happening a philosophical rat hole, it seems to me.
I studied philosophy in college and loved it very much. But when we want to debate such things today as “What’s a person?” and “What’s a girl?” when it’s obvious horse sense — we shouldn’t must do that. Once you get into these sorts of discussions, that to me is one other indication of craziness.
Today, everybody’s afraid of the whole lot. No person tells you what they think. I’m a free agent. I’m a free radical. I’m known everywhere in the world, and I’m an old man and no person gives a rat’s a– what I believe anyway. But all these young individuals who work for corporations — you say two things unsuitable and also you’re out. It’s so fast.
They’re scared of expressing an opinion. And I don’t blame them, in the event you’re young, and you’ve got aspirations, you’ve got a family, children, whatever — keep your mouth shut. People have needed to change into very careful.
Fox News Digital: Do you are feeling that in your profession, you’ve been at the proper place at the proper time — the proper person to create the songs you’ve created? You suggested this before, after we last spoke about “American Pie.”
McLean: Yes, I feel all of that. And I like singing quite a bit. I’m very glad with what I did with my life. At this point in my life — and in the event you reach this point, and quite a lot of people don’t — to say that, I believe, is an excellent thing.
I do a thing on stage, where I’ll say, “People ask me, how do you write songs?”
And I say, “Well, the very first thing you do is you fall in love. That’s the very first thing. You have got to fall in love.”
Most songs are written about women or men. Taylor Swift — take a look at that. It’s an entire profession out of angst and happiness and relationships. So, you meet anyone, and you’ve got a song like, “I’ve Just Seen a Face” [by The Beatles] — this type of magic.
So that you meet the person and then you definitely fall in love. “And I Love You So” — I’ll throw certainly one of mine in there. Possibly you’ll have the youngsters — “Wonderful Baby.” There’s one other song.
After which possibly you begin getting uninterested in the connection. And also you start looking around. And now your country music starts kicking in here. “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind” [by Loretta Lynn] — all this type of stuff.
After which, OK, just about, you break up — “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” [by Tammy Wynette] — after which, “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft” [by Jerry Reed] and on and on.
But the toughest certainly one of all is, here comes the girl you thought you were over — and possibly it’s Christmastime, and he or she’s coming down the road or the avenue, where all of the shopping is, possibly it’s in Latest York City, all of the shops and all of the people, Bloomingdale’s, — and there she is along with her recent love and her presents, and he or she’s just so glad.
And that’s the hardest song of all. After which I sing, “Crying” — or “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You)” — these sorts of things.
In my life — and although I just said I’m glad with it — there’s quite a lot of pain in writing songs.
And in the event you don’t have pain, you’re not going to put in writing anything worthwhile.
Fox News Digital: After we understand today that ChatGPT can spit out song lyrics and much more — what are your thoughts on that? Concerns in your end?
McLean: There’s going to be quite a lot of lawsuits, I can let you know that. That is wide-open town. And in the event that they spit out any of my lyrics — , [people] will be throughout any entity that does anything that’s remotely like sampling.
There’s going to be quite a lot of lawsuits, quite a lot of money spent on lawyers. That’s the one strategy to stop it, to make people pay for copyright infringement.
But it surely’s not so easy. In the event you put all these items right into a computer — in the event you put in Beethoven, and Don McLean, and the Sons of the Pioneers, let’s say — and it comes out with, what? I don’t know.
Yet mental property may be very powerful and it’s protected in the USA.
Once more, though, once I hear the stuff that’s on the market today, that’s something that’s passing itself off as music today.
I don’t call it music. You’ll be able to’t whistle it. In the event you can’t whistle a tune, it’s not a song. You’ll be able to’t whistle these items. It’s just — a type of entertainment by the yard. It’s not music.
That’s why I say computers will be better. They’ll be fed music — and it’s going to come back out more musical than what individuals are in a position to do now.
I don’t know what’s going to occur with AI when this inflection point is reached. You’re not going to know what’s real and what isn’t. You’re not going to know who’s on the phone.
It’s just starting. That’s my point. We are only suddenly aware of this.
But it surely hasn’t begun to achieve the purpose where it takes off exponentially. After which how can we sustain with it? That is one other terrifying thing that we created.
The story of Frankenstein has to be the nice story of humanity. In trying to seek out a strategy to make our presence on Earth known in order that it could actually last eternally, we’ve now created a type of life, a Frankenstein type of life, that mockingly, as a substitute of letting us last eternally, mockingly could eliminate us and be here without us.
And it’s capable of adjusting. We deserve this, in a way, because we’ve mainly handed ourselves over to the phone and the computers.
That’s why I like still making records and writing songs. You return to the lyric — easy. You realize what it says, and where it got here from.
And I stand behind it. It’s guaranteed to have come from my brain.
Fox News Digital: The folks that you attract to your live shows and shows are going to see you. They’re not going to see a recording or imitation of you or your work — they wish to see you. Isn’t that the case?
McLean: Yes, and yet another thing here. When I am going on stage, that is what I say. Each time I play anywhere now, 90% of the people [also playing on tour] are tribute bands — tribute bands to ABBA, the Rolling Stones, to Neil Diamond, to John Denver.
So I say to my audience, “I’m the one real guy left. I’m really me! That is me! Here I’m.”
Then I kid around with them. I say, “I’m gonna audition a Don McLean in Europe, and one other one in Australia, and one other one in England, and one other one in the USA — and I’m gonna have my musical director be busy for the remainder of his life casting the band and the writing arrangements. After which I’m gonna retire.”
Children’s books, plus tour, recent album and more
McLean — who’s 77 — doesn’t appear to be nearing retirement any time soon.
Five of McLean’s songs are set to be became stories for teenagers and published as children’s books, he shared.
“American Pie: The Fable” (2022) is already out. Still coming up is “Vincent,” “Castles within the Air,” “And I Love You So” and “Tapestry,” he said.
Meanwhile, he’s doing 13 live shows within the U.S. between June and October, including a number of appearances on the East Coast.
His newest album, “American Boys,” will be out this yr.
He’s also going to have a Christmastime remix out around the vacations, he said.
Plus, the documentary “The Day The Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie” was nominated for best music documentary by the 2023 MTV Movie and TV Awards.
“I’m at all times busy,” he said, “and I like accomplishing things — making goals for myself and achieving them.”
McLean’s iconic song “American Pie” attained No. 1 on the Billboard charts after its release more than 50 years ago, on Jan. 15, 1972. To this present day it stays a classic of American folk rock music. It’s been featured in quite a few movies and other venues.
“American Pie” can be within the Library of Congress National Recording Registry and was named a top-5 song of the twentieth century by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA).
Anyone wanting more information can take a look at McLean’s website at donmclean.com.