Yquotes.com

 

As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. … Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.
--
As quoted in "What is Don McLean's song 'American Pie' all about?" at The Straight Dope (15 May 1993)

 

Don McLean

» Don McLean - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

We were recording a song called "I Don't Ever Want To Be Without You." The same Christian record company radio guy called me and asked me if we could change the song's title and lyrics. when I asked why, he said, "Because there are two negative words in the title-don't and without ... I'd like some positive ones; can you call the song, 'I Always Want To Be With You?"'

 

Mark Heard

 

" Yorke's lyrics make me want to give up. I could never in my wildest dreams find something as beautiful as they find for a single song — let alone album after album."

 

Thom Yorke

 

I think [Shout 2000] is a masterpiece. We did want a song that is completely opposite to our sound, you know, coming from a completely different direction, but yet at the same time has the same meaning, has lyrics like something written by Disturbed. "Shout" is perfect for it. It's about voicing your displeasure and yelling it out, shouting it out, not sitting back and taking it. But if you remember when "Shout" was written – it's an '80s pop song from England – things were softer then. I think it really blends in well with our other songs and we play it almost every night and our audiences love it... Curt Smith told us that he thinks now finally the song has the aggression he envisioned when he wrote the lyrics. Wow, that was such a great compliment. We were floored. We could hardly believe it.

 

David Draiman

 

Music comes first; lyrics are secondary. Most of my lyrics are contradictions. I'll write a few sincere lines, and then I'll have to make fun of [them]. I don't like to make it too obvious, because if it is too obvious, it gets really stale. You shouldn't be in people's faces 100% all the time. We don't mean to be really cryptic or mysterious, but I just think that lyrics that are different and weird and spacey paint a nice picture. It's just the way I like art.

 

Kurt Donald Cobain

 

So, if you played a C major chord to pretty much any person on the planet, they'd say that it sounds "harmonious" (or pleasing, or happy, etc, etc). But now when you want to put chords and melodies in an ordering and make a larger piece called a "song", then that is a much more difficult process, and gets very subjective. At that point, it's not just the chords, it's the lyrics, rhythms, instrumentation, tempo, intensity, any number of other things that goes into a song... so many variables that it's almost impossible to predict how a song will affect a given person.

 

Andrew Sega