Thirty-five minutes of strong material that survives despite calling Bob Dylan a jester. A bold move from Don McLean on American Pie, the title track of his second album. But it pays off in the end. He never immortalised himself as a songwriter on the level of those he mocked or mentioned, but he got pretty close with American Pie. Will McLean be remembered for his other albums? No. But his fans can pretend he will be. Tapestry and the self-titled album either side of American Pie are strong listens but never cut to the core of McLean’s offerings. Not quite as well as the title track and a few A-side trimmings. The problem with being defined by one, winding song is that you set a standard for your later works and the rest of the album, too. But you can only be moved by the death of Buddy Holly once per album by the sounds of it. What McLean achieved on the title track is a masterstroke, but it’s hardly replicable.
He struggles to bring much of a fuss to the rest of the songs featured on American Pie. Outside of the traipse through modern American culture at such a tempo the details don’t matter, there isn’t much on the same level as the title track. But there are moments worth tuning into. Til Tomorrow benefits from being the comedown after the title track and offers some sweet instrumental moments. McLean has a knack for acoustic variation here and it makes all the difference as he runs through some familiar, similar-sounding work. His folk twang comes about best of all on Vincent, arguably as strong as American Pie but without the threads of American music history to riff on. Much of what McLean sings of is uncertainty in the face of heartbreak and certainty when it comes to love. Crossroads is not a comment on the losses of love but a consideration of which avenue will leave the protagonist happier. Reflection dominates, as is the case for much of McLean’s piano-featuring works.
A stretch of six songs on the B-side is where American Pie begins to fall apart. Soppy and not entirely believable love songs like Winterwood manage to slip on through because they sound, instrumentally, pleasant enough. But McLean’s writing begins to faulter here. McLean finds a sentimental sound he enjoys and just sticks with it from there without ever challenging himself further. Empty Chairs is sweet but once you realise it has the same structure as those earlier pieces, it’s hard to feel all that moved by them. Everybody Loves Me, Baby follows on from acoustic-driven reflections on whether love is enough. Apparently it is for the swagger heard on that upbeat rocker, which fails to figure out whether it wants to be an ego-stroking power play or an angel-guided explanation of how the protagonist has a unique touch for wooing everyone. If you can muster the courage and give McLean the benefit of the doubt on Everybody Loves Me, Baby, it’s a playful knock at the wannabe pick-up artists who believe themselves indestructible despite how shallow they are.
Despite all that, the title track and Vincent are strong enough to keep McLean a household name, and to maintain this album as one worth listening to. He relies too much on the same few plays, the stripped-back acoustic flavour begins to lose something special after it features yet again on The Grave. That’s a strange song though, an anti-war track which never tries to hide away the comment against that pain. Other artists were working with subtleties McLean never had but he had a flowery writing style which felt, at times, like Scott Walker. That wistful and wandering tone of The Grave has much in common with The Seventh Seal, and it’s a wonderful late-stage moment that proves McLean is more than just a man who noticed the day the music died.
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