Don McLean Quotes

When I did 'Horses,' I never expected to make another album.

I never stopped recording, but I went through a period where... The one thing that a lot of people don't know is that for as long as I've been as artist, I've been a writer and a producer.

Domesticity is the enemy of art. I don't know if that's true. You can write good happy songs. So, I don't think it's necessarily happiness. But I think self-satisfaction is maybe the enemy. It's kind of better to think, "Tomorrow night I'm gonna sing it better." There is this forward effort. It feels to me right, it feels human.

When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be.

Maybe I'll have something out by Christmas, maybe not. I don't know, I'm really trying to take my time and do what feels right. (about the next step in her music career)

I started writing songs in high school and always wanted to have a band, and eventually my creative endeavors developed into Theocracy. So in some ways, you could say the vision has been there since I started writing songs.

There does not exist a painter who knows himself or knows what he is doing.

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.

You have to be clear what your message is and what you're doing. I mean, Miley Cyrus is an amazing talent, and sometimes you kind of just want to say, 'We know you're not Hannah Montana anymore. We know that, my dear. My darling. Now, go be great.'

I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything.

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 was a cover artist for years. I didn't start writing songs until I was in my mid-twenties. I wrote them with John Leventhal, and they were pretty bad. I was in my late twenties when I wrote the first song with him that made any sense to me about what I was rooted in and what spoke for me as an artist. That was 'Diamond in the Rough.'

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

People would say to me, 'Who do you want to be as an artist?' And I would just look at them because I didn't know.

Traffic' was an album that had a significant amount of songs. It was not complete and I felt didn't fully represent me as a person or as the artist I want to be and so when I started the writing process for 'The Autobiography' I was really turning a corner in my life.

Any young, aspiring musicians out there, if music is what you want to do, if music is what you love and your passion. It doesn't take a fragrance, it's not about the tabloids, it's about you putting in the work, practicing every day, practicing your vocals, practicing your instrument, practicing songwriting. Hopefully one day you write the song the whole world wants to get down to. I promise you, if you go out there and sing and you put your heart and soul into it and you follow your dream, one day you're going to be sitting next to Ellen DeGeneres talking about how you broke records and rocked the Super Bowl.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.

It takes so long to write a script, thinking to yourself, "Am I wasting my time? Am I putting everything into this thing that maybe just won't ever exist?" I always think, God, acting is so much easier. At least for acting you have the source material already.

Success is being artistically fulfilled and happy. You can't control how people see your movie or how much money it makes...and the same thing with music. When I'm writing a song or I'm in the studio, those memories, that's epic.

People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most days it's very hard because I'm frightened - not frightened of writing a bad play, although that happens often with me. I'm frightened of encountering the wilderness of my own spirit, which is always , no matter how many plays I write, a new and uncharted place. Every day when I sit down to write, I can't remember how it's done.

I'm not sure if the next song I write is going to be about love or a song about a tree.

The drumming helps a lot when I'm producing songs or writing songs. My knowledge of drums helps more in that aspect, (although) I don't know, man; I'm not great at any of them.

I see a steady downward slope toward oblivion over the next three years. I'm pessimistic. Everything that's happened to me so far has been kind of flukey. I went into Twentieth Century because I wanted to work for Hal Prince. The part was too small according to my agent. I had been doing only leading parts, and he thought I should continue that. But the part was enlarged in rehearsal: songs were added, and it became more physicalized and showy. Then I won awards and got attention.