Don McLean Quotes

It's pretty cool to see how far music can take you.

Nobody in my family was musical. I had no idea you could be a songwriter and make a living at it. It was all discovery. It was all just thrown at me.

I learned Neil Young songs, Bob Dylan songs and older songs. It wasn't until I moved to Philly that I had aspirations to maybe forming a band.

I grew up in a very musical family, but music was not encouraged as a career. It was a hobby.

I literally came out of high school thinking that I was going to do something in the sports world because I grew up with a very sports-oriented family. My last year of school, I got involved with playing guitar and singing, and I joined a band and I just decided that year somehow that I was going to play music.

My parents were both very musically inclined, they were both songwriters and musicians, so we grew up in the house singing music together, and R&B had a huge strong arm in the foundation of my career.

I just essentially stayed at home for three years and just learned to play as many instruments as I could and listened to as many singers as I could. Like, when I got to about 19/20, I started listening to singers. I normally just listened to bands. Now I listen to a lot of old singers, not a lot of new stuff.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

All the really good guitar players - Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin - I love all those people. But I didn't start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.

My dad wanted me to play when I was a kid, so I learned to play the guitar. I pursued a career in music because I love it so much and I enjoy what it does to those who hear it.

I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.

I was a huge Beatles fan. We could talk about who I listened to growing up and what my sources were, but certainly the Beatles were a late, important resource for me, and I just took my guitar and a handful of songs, and I decided, well, I'll just go over and travel around Europe and see what comes of it.

I started playing guitar when I was 12 and probably from that age knew that I wanted to make music and make my own music. Playing with other bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens was more like an apprenticeship for me than anything.

I just had to find something else to fulfill me. Always being a singer and writing, it was a blessing. My brother started making music that was the kind of music I always saw myself singing.

I never even held a guitar until I was 23 and living in California, but then loved it. I'm really not an accomplished instrumentalist. Maybe that has something to do with why I write and sing.

I was inspired to make music since I was 7 because my aunt is a songwriter.

I was always in love with music, but my parents never really saw that I had talent, and it was really just by chance that I made it into the Menuhin School, and from then on my life changed. And that was when I realized, OK, this is what I want to do. But, until then, it was really just a passion, a hobby.

I was 17 when I released my first record. I didn't really figure out what I wanted to say, how to get a message and put it together.

I've been singing and playing the guitar ever since I can remember.

When you grow up in New Orleans, like, the only way to be an artist is to be a 55-year-old black musician. That's basically what we wanted to be. If you had asked me very truthfully what I wanted to be when I was 16, the answer would've been, 'I want to be a 55-year-old black musician.'

From dancing around to Michael Jackson and Madonna as a kid to having my mind blown by the first sounds of punk and indie rock, to getting to play my own songs and have people listen, music is what got me through.

I will never stop making music.

The LUMS Olympiad back 10 years ago gave me a boost to sing songs where I first met with amazing Uzair Jaswal who did not sing cover songs but his original songs.

I remember buying The Fugees' 'The Score' my freshman year and feeling like this whole new world and this whole new conversation was opening up to me.

I went to college to find myself. That's where I really realized I wanted to be a recording artist and started on the process of figuring out how to do that.