The Best of Don McLean

by

Don McLean

Edit

Don McLean is the subject of Roberta Flack's heartfelt tribute in the 1973 hit 'Killing Me Softly With His Song'.

McLean is certainly one of the greatest balladeers, coming out with some really superior music, soothing, thoughtful and with poetic lyrics.

This album begins with McLean's most famous hit 'American Pie' (1971) which was inspired by the tragic death of one of McLean's earliest role models and musical influences, Buddy Holly, in 1959.

Later commentators have tried to put other significance to the song, such as claiming it was an anti- Vietnam War protest song, but there is no evidence for such claims, as McLean refuses to comment on such spurious analysis.

At any rate , American Pie is one of my less favourite McLean songs so I don't know why it is his most famous.

It is followed by the sad tribute to Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent (1971).

But these two well known songs where certainly far from the sum total of Don Mc Lean's talent. 'And I Love You So (1970) is McLean's beautiful version of this poignant love song, also done by various other artists.

He also does a great version of Crying (1978), originally the hit of Roy Orbison in 1961.

Castles In The Air (1970) is in my opinion, perhaps McLean's greatest piece, an exquisite song of longing for the beauty and simplicity of the country life away from the shallow 'cocktail generation': "Words cannot express the feel of sunlight in the morning , in the hills away from city strife.I need a country woman for my wife , I'm city born but I love the country life" . The words are poetic and set to fantastic music. I can relate to the song perfectly.

Dreidel (1972), another superb piece, refers to the spinning top played with by Jewish children at the festival of Chanukah, and he compares it's spinning to the spinning of life.

Then there is the musical poetry of Winter Wood (1971) and the feel good love song Everyday (1973).

Mountains o'Mourne (1973) is an Irish ballad of longing and love , and as always McLean does it perfectly

While all the songs on this album are exquisite there are other wonderful songs, which McLean sung, which are unfortunately left off this album such as The Birthday Song (1972) , Wonderful Baby (1974) , Fools Paradise ( 1973) and Respectable ( 1970) .

With only ten songs on this album, there should have been space for some more McLean gems.

"The Best of Don McLean" follows true to the tradition of the many ten-track compilations in McLean's catalogue by taking his five most well-known songs--American Pie, Vincent, And I Love You So, Crying, and Castles in the Air--and then picking five more songs out of a hat to fill the space. These five aforementioned tracks are generally considered his best, and I have to agree, but there are some gems to be found among the lesser known fillers. The underrated Driedel is an insight into the consequences of your life's choices. Winterwood is a fine guitar-picking love song that doesn't get too mushy on you (like And I Love You So.) Every Day is a rather entertaining cover if a bit of a throwaway. His cover of Mountains O'Mourne is an excellently done ballad, and that leaves Prime Time as the only real throwaway of the bunch.

The real problem with just about every compilation album of McLean's is that they blatantly ignore what really is his best work. To me, the best possible Don McLean song (aside, of course, from American Pie) is a simplistic acoustic tune with McLean's endearing tenor singing deep lyrics (such as Vincent.) McLean's live performance album "Solo" makes for a far better "Best of" album than most of his compilations, in my mind. The compilation producers and myself are just clearly not seeing eye-to-eye, it seems.

"The Best of Don McLean" has a handful of great songs, but it is not a good enough retrospective of McLean's abilities. If you must get some compilation, and my are there many, then "The Legendary songs of Don McLean" would probably be a better choice, since it has twice as many tracks. But even that album ignores McLean's lesser known brilliance.