Few songs have endured like “American Pie.” And you could say the same about Don McLean, who’s still on the road at eighty — 55 years after he wrote the chart topper that made him famous. He has become a living link to music that never dies and, remarkably, shows no signs of slowing down.
McLean is more than a legend in his own time: He’s expanding his horizons, with a Broadway show in development; a children’s book, Vincent: Starry, Starry Night, based on his lyrics; and a foundation devoted to organizations that help the homeless. But nothing equals the boost he gets from performing live as fans sing his hits along with him.
Jeanne Wolf: You still love going on the road and, now, singing your way across the country from Florida to Las Vegas this summer, and across Australia this fall.
Don McLean: I think of it as singing in the room. That’s where music had the biggest impact on me growing up, in rooms from Carnegie Hall to Madison Square Garden, listening to greats from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald and the Beatles. So I’ll be singing my songs in big and small rooms, and I’ll get the audience to sing along too, and before you know it, it’s time for the last song. Of course, there will be “American Pie” and “Vincent” and “I Love You So.” I don’t mind singing the songs that I’m known for and that the audience wants me to sing. I never get tired of it. What makes me so happy is that it gives people moments of reflection, and it brings back times in their lives that have passed — where you heard it, when you heard it. The memory is very powerful.
JW: Were you all about music when you were a kid?
DM: I wasn’t good in school, but when I got a guitar in my hands when I was about 13 or 14, and I saw Elvis Presley, I thought to myself, “If I can learn to play this, I know I can sing. I can sing for people, and I can make a few dollars, and I can have fun doing it.” I had no idea what that relationship with the guitar would produce. I never thought about the future. I just went through this exciting adventure. And the songs still come to me. I wake up and they’re in my head.
Years have been going by and now it’s the 55th anniversary. I’m 80 but I don’t ever think of retiring. I’ve outlived some greats who did and so I’ll just keep on doing what I love.
JW: So what keeps you going?
DM: I’m a fighter. I will die before I ever give in. That’s what you have to learn. You can’t be running to somebody to hold your hand all the time through pain, and it will strengthen you. Nobody could tell me nothing growing up, and nobody has ever since. And if it turned out great, then I was responsible, and if it was a failure, I was responsible. I learn from my mistakes for sure. [But] I realize how blessed I have been, and I know how rough it is for everybody else out there who can’t find a pathway in life that they love. I’m so lucky to have found mine.
Jeanne Wolf is the Post’s West Coast editor.
This article is featured in the May/June 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.
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