Chords for Don McLean on the Alan Titchmarsh Show - 13th February 2012
Tempo:
140 bpm
Chords used:
G
D
C
Am
A
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[E] Tree [A] wife.
Time now for my next guest.
With a career spanning over 40 years,
he's a legend in the world of music.
Artists such as Madonna and George Michael have covered his songs,
and just last week he was honoured by BBC Radio 2
with a Lifetime Achievement Award for classic songs such as these.
[G] Starry, starry night
Paint [Am] your palette blue and grey
Look [C] out on a summer's day
[G] With [D] eyes that know the darkness [G] in my [C] soul
[G] I [D] started singing [G] bye, [C] [G] bye Miss [D] America
I [G] drove my Chevy to the levee but the [D] levee was dry
[G] Them good [C] old [G] boys were drinking whiskey [D] and rye
And [Em] singing this'll be the day that [A] I die
[Em]
This'll be the day [D] that I die
Please welcome Don McLean!
[A]
CHEERING
[D] [E]
[A]
[D] [E] Thank [A] you.
Well done.
[N]
Well done.
Don, I think to have written one song that stays with the world
when you've gone is one thing, but to have written as many as you have,
do you rather like that, that you hear people humming things
when you go around?
You know, American Pie is such a classic.
Well, you know, back in the day when we were writing songs,
the songs had melodies.
Yeah, I remember tunes, I remember tunes.
That's why you have the Beatles songs, as famous as they are,
and all these other songs, because they stayed in your head.
You know, the catchy song, it catches you, [G] and it doesn't let you go.
It also seemed in that period when you were songwriting,
you were writing songs, let's say with a mission,
I don't mean that the mission, you know, stopped them being enjoyable songs,
but now there's no sort of underlying kind of thrust to a song,
is there, you know, these were all the sorts of things that were going on,
like the Vietnam War, like people living in little boxes,
you know, Pete Seeger, lots of songs had a message to them in those days.
Well, things had gotten very corporate.
Yeah.
People used to
Music and everything was coming from the ground up,
whereas before it had come from the top down,
and that was a big new thing, you know,
the Rolling Stones and stuff like that, we were making our own music,
you know, in the old days, in the 50s, let's say with Frank Sinatra,
he wouldhe
knew how to sing a song better than anyone,
so they'd give him a great song by Irving Berlin,
so they got the song covered, and they go in the studio,
they make the record with the best musicians,
Axl Stordahl or Nelson Riddle,
record company had the right engineers, fabulous, see?
The singer-songwriter thing was the thing that the Beatles started,
you had to sing your own song, write your own song,
produce your own song in the record,
argue with the producer if you didn't like it,
and nobody knew what they were doing,
and making it up by the seat of their pants.
People always talk about American Pie and say,
Don is very mysterious about the lyric, he'll never explain it,
I think there's a lot of sense in that,
because it can be what anybody wants it to be.
There's a level of it that's fun,
and then there's a level of it that's just like a dream,
and if you sort of dumb it down and talk about this kind of thing,
every time I see Carly Simon, they ask her, you know,
who's your Sovane?
That's why she doesn't do interviews.
She did a couple of years ago, I spoke to her a couple of years ago.
So that's why I don't talk about it.
Don't blame me at all.
The coincidences that happen in life,
we've just been talking about Elizabeth Taylor selling a Van Gogh.
I mean, Vincent has been such an enormous hit for you,
starry, starry night.
He was number one over here, along with Crying,
and American Pie was number two.
I'll play a little bit.
[F#] Starry, starry [G] night
Paint your [Am] palette blue and grey
Look [C] out on a summer's day
[G] With [Am] eyes that [D] know the darkness [G] in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the [Am] trees and the daffodils
[C] Catch the breeze and the winter chills
[D]
In colors on the snowy linen [G] land
[C] [Em] [G]
Now I [Am] understand
[D] What [Am]
[G] you tried to say [D] to me
[G] [E] [Em] How you suffered [Am] for your sanity
[D]
How you [Em] tried to set them free
They would not listen, [A] they did not know how
[C] Perhaps
[D] they'll listen [G] now
There [N] you go.
One of the reasons why I like doing this,
is I sit here and I get, you know, you come and do this,
it's wonderful to enjoy it in person,
it makes it very special when you're actually there.
You're doing a tour?
You're coming in the fall?
I don't know, I've done so many,
but the last few have been wonderfully successful.
I got to play at Gloucester and Berry this summer,
was it this summer or last summer?
And another wonderful tour is coming up.
And some of the stuff that you showed here
were links to a little television documentary
that's been done about my life and career
called American Troubadour,
which those were pictures of me as a kid
with my parents in the backyard and everything,
it's all part of this thing which is going to be on,
and which will be over here probably in a 90-minute version
as well as a CD and all the rest of it.
Does it give you a thrill that people like Fred Astaire
and Elvis Presley have sung your songs?
Oh, I mean, you know, my life has been a dream basically
because I never really was cut out to be a big star.
I was sort of a guy who liked the idea of inventing these songs
and singing with my guitar, and it grew kind of from there,
you know, I ended up in the studio with the Jordan Airs
and Elvis Presley's background group.
The next minute I had a number one with Crying.
So I had these dream things would happen to me.
I found myself at Johnny Cash's house after I lost four Grammys,
you know, so that was actually better than winning a Grammy.
Being at Johnny Cash's house, it's a lot of fun.
Roy Orbison was there and everything.
Oh, gosh, the name drops.
Come back any time you want.
Delighted to have you.
Look forward to the talk.
Congratulations on the Radio Too Fair Award.
Ladies and gentlemen, Don McLean.
What a
Time now for my next guest.
With a career spanning over 40 years,
he's a legend in the world of music.
Artists such as Madonna and George Michael have covered his songs,
and just last week he was honoured by BBC Radio 2
with a Lifetime Achievement Award for classic songs such as these.
[G] Starry, starry night
Paint [Am] your palette blue and grey
Look [C] out on a summer's day
[G] With [D] eyes that know the darkness [G] in my [C] soul
[G] I [D] started singing [G] bye, [C] [G] bye Miss [D] America
I [G] drove my Chevy to the levee but the [D] levee was dry
[G] Them good [C] old [G] boys were drinking whiskey [D] and rye
And [Em] singing this'll be the day that [A] I die
[Em]
This'll be the day [D] that I die
Please welcome Don McLean!
[A]
CHEERING
[D] [E]
[A]
[D] [E] Thank [A] you.
Well done.
[N]
Well done.
Don, I think to have written one song that stays with the world
when you've gone is one thing, but to have written as many as you have,
do you rather like that, that you hear people humming things
when you go around?
You know, American Pie is such a classic.
Well, you know, back in the day when we were writing songs,
the songs had melodies.
Yeah, I remember tunes, I remember tunes.
That's why you have the Beatles songs, as famous as they are,
and all these other songs, because they stayed in your head.
You know, the catchy song, it catches you, [G] and it doesn't let you go.
It also seemed in that period when you were songwriting,
you were writing songs, let's say with a mission,
I don't mean that the mission, you know, stopped them being enjoyable songs,
but now there's no sort of underlying kind of thrust to a song,
is there, you know, these were all the sorts of things that were going on,
like the Vietnam War, like people living in little boxes,
you know, Pete Seeger, lots of songs had a message to them in those days.
Well, things had gotten very corporate.
Yeah.
People used to
Music and everything was coming from the ground up,
whereas before it had come from the top down,
and that was a big new thing, you know,
the Rolling Stones and stuff like that, we were making our own music,
you know, in the old days, in the 50s, let's say with Frank Sinatra,
he wouldhe
knew how to sing a song better than anyone,
so they'd give him a great song by Irving Berlin,
so they got the song covered, and they go in the studio,
they make the record with the best musicians,
Axl Stordahl or Nelson Riddle,
record company had the right engineers, fabulous, see?
The singer-songwriter thing was the thing that the Beatles started,
you had to sing your own song, write your own song,
produce your own song in the record,
argue with the producer if you didn't like it,
and nobody knew what they were doing,
and making it up by the seat of their pants.
People always talk about American Pie and say,
Don is very mysterious about the lyric, he'll never explain it,
I think there's a lot of sense in that,
because it can be what anybody wants it to be.
There's a level of it that's fun,
and then there's a level of it that's just like a dream,
and if you sort of dumb it down and talk about this kind of thing,
every time I see Carly Simon, they ask her, you know,
who's your Sovane?
That's why she doesn't do interviews.
She did a couple of years ago, I spoke to her a couple of years ago.
So that's why I don't talk about it.
Don't blame me at all.
The coincidences that happen in life,
we've just been talking about Elizabeth Taylor selling a Van Gogh.
I mean, Vincent has been such an enormous hit for you,
starry, starry night.
He was number one over here, along with Crying,
and American Pie was number two.
I'll play a little bit.
[F#] Starry, starry [G] night
Paint your [Am] palette blue and grey
Look [C] out on a summer's day
[G] With [Am] eyes that [D] know the darkness [G] in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the [Am] trees and the daffodils
[C] Catch the breeze and the winter chills
[D]
In colors on the snowy linen [G] land
[C] [Em] [G]
Now I [Am] understand
[D] What [Am]
[G] you tried to say [D] to me
[G] [E] [Em] How you suffered [Am] for your sanity
[D]
How you [Em] tried to set them free
They would not listen, [A] they did not know how
[C] Perhaps
[D] they'll listen [G] now
There [N] you go.
One of the reasons why I like doing this,
is I sit here and I get, you know, you come and do this,
it's wonderful to enjoy it in person,
it makes it very special when you're actually there.
You're doing a tour?
You're coming in the fall?
I don't know, I've done so many,
but the last few have been wonderfully successful.
I got to play at Gloucester and Berry this summer,
was it this summer or last summer?
And another wonderful tour is coming up.
And some of the stuff that you showed here
were links to a little television documentary
that's been done about my life and career
called American Troubadour,
which those were pictures of me as a kid
with my parents in the backyard and everything,
it's all part of this thing which is going to be on,
and which will be over here probably in a 90-minute version
as well as a CD and all the rest of it.
Does it give you a thrill that people like Fred Astaire
and Elvis Presley have sung your songs?
Oh, I mean, you know, my life has been a dream basically
because I never really was cut out to be a big star.
I was sort of a guy who liked the idea of inventing these songs
and singing with my guitar, and it grew kind of from there,
you know, I ended up in the studio with the Jordan Airs
and Elvis Presley's background group.
The next minute I had a number one with Crying.
So I had these dream things would happen to me.
I found myself at Johnny Cash's house after I lost four Grammys,
you know, so that was actually better than winning a Grammy.
Being at Johnny Cash's house, it's a lot of fun.
Roy Orbison was there and everything.
Oh, gosh, the name drops.
Come back any time you want.
Delighted to have you.
Look forward to the talk.
Congratulations on the Radio Too Fair Award.
Ladies and gentlemen, Don McLean.
What a
Key:
G
D
C
Am
A
G
D
C
[E] Tree [A] wife.
Time now for my next guest.
With a career spanning over 40 years,
he's a legend in the world of music.
Artists such as Madonna and George Michael have covered his songs,
and just last week he was honoured by BBC Radio 2
with a Lifetime Achievement Award for classic songs such as these.
_ [G] Starry, starry night _ _
_ Paint _ _ [Am] your palette blue and grey _ _ _ _
Look [C] out on a summer's day
_ [G] With [D] eyes that know the darkness [G] in my [C] soul
[G] _ I [D] started singing [G] bye, [C] [G] bye Miss [D] America
I [G] drove my Chevy to the levee but the [D] levee was dry
[G] Them good [C] old [G] boys were drinking whiskey [D] and rye
And [Em] singing this'll be the day that [A] I die
_ _ [Em] _
This'll be the day [D] that I die
_ Please _ welcome Don McLean!
_ [A] _
CHEERING
[D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [E] Thank [A] you.
_ _ Well done.
_ [N] _
Well done.
_ _ _ Don, I think to have written one song that stays with the world
when you've gone is one thing, but to have written as many as you have,
do you rather like that, that you hear people humming things
when you go around?
You know, American Pie is such a classic.
Well, you know, back in the day when we were writing songs,
the songs had melodies.
_ _ Yeah, I remember tunes, I remember tunes.
That's why you have the Beatles songs, as famous as they are,
and all these other songs, because they stayed in your head.
You know, the catchy song, it catches you, [G] and it doesn't let you go.
It also seemed in that period when you were songwriting,
you were writing songs, let's say with a mission,
I don't mean that the mission, you know, stopped them being enjoyable songs,
but now there's no sort of underlying kind of thrust to a song,
is there, you know, these were all the sorts of things that were going on,
like the Vietnam War, like people living in little boxes,
you know, Pete Seeger, lots of songs had a message to them in those days.
Well, things had gotten very corporate.
Yeah.
People used to_ _
Music and everything was coming from the ground up,
whereas before it had come from the top down,
and that was a big new thing, you know,
the Rolling Stones and stuff like that, we were making our own music,
you know, in the old days, in the 50s, let's say with Frank Sinatra,
he _ would_he
knew how to sing a song better than anyone,
so they'd give him a great song by Irving Berlin,
so they got the song covered, and they go in the studio,
they make the record with the best musicians,
Axl Stordahl or Nelson Riddle,
record company had the right engineers, _ fabulous, see?
The singer-songwriter thing was the thing that the Beatles started,
you had to sing your own song, write your own song,
produce your own song in the record,
argue with the producer if you didn't like it,
and nobody knew what they were doing,
and making it up by the seat of their pants.
_ _ People always talk about American Pie and say,
Don is very mysterious about the lyric, he'll never explain it,
I think there's a lot of sense in that,
because it can be what anybody wants it to be.
_ There's a level of it that's fun,
and then there's a level of it that's just like a dream,
and if you sort of dumb it down and talk about this kind of thing,
every time I see Carly Simon, they ask her, you know,
who's your Sovane?
_ That's why she doesn't do interviews.
_ _ _ _ She did a couple of years ago, I spoke to her a couple of years ago.
_ _ So that's why I don't talk about it.
Don't blame me at all.
The coincidences that happen in life,
we've just been talking about Elizabeth Taylor selling a Van Gogh.
I mean, Vincent has been such an enormous _ hit for you,
starry, starry night.
He was number one over here, along with Crying,
and American Pie was number two.
I'll play a little bit. _
_ _ [F#] Starry, starry [G] night _
_ _ _ Paint _ _ _ your [Am] palette blue and grey _ _
Look _ _ _ [C] out on a summer's day
_ _ [G] With [Am] eyes that [D] know the darkness [G] in my soul _ _
Shadows on the hills _ _
_ Sketch _ _ _ _ the [Am] trees and the _ daffodils _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] Catch the breeze and the winter chills
_ _ [D]
In colors on the snowy linen [G] land
_ [C] _ _ _ [Em] _ [G] _ _ _
Now I [Am] understand _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ What [Am] _ _
[G] you tried to say [D] to me
[G] _ [E] _ _ [Em] How you suffered [Am] for your sanity
_ _ _ _ [D]
How you [Em] tried to set them free
They would not listen, [A] they did not know how
_ _ _ [C] Perhaps _
_ [D] _ they'll listen [G] _ now
_ _ _ There [N] you go. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
One of the reasons why I like doing this,
is I sit here and I get, you know, you come and do this,
it's wonderful to enjoy it in person,
it makes it very special when you're actually there.
You're doing a tour?
You're coming in the fall?
I don't know, I've done so many,
but the last few have been wonderfully successful.
I got to play at Gloucester and Berry this summer,
was it this summer or last summer? _ _
And another wonderful tour is coming up.
And some of the stuff that you showed here
were links to a little _ _ television documentary
that's been done about my life and career
called American Troubadour,
which those were pictures of me as a kid
with my parents in the backyard and everything,
it's all part of this thing which is going to be on,
and which will be over here probably in a 90-minute version
as well as a CD and all the rest of it.
Does it give you a thrill that people like Fred Astaire
and Elvis Presley have sung your songs?
Oh, I mean, you know, my life has been a dream basically
because I never really was cut out to be a big star.
I was sort of a guy who liked the idea of inventing these songs
and singing with my guitar, and it grew kind of from there,
you know, I ended up in the studio with the Jordan Airs
and Elvis Presley's background group.
The next minute I had a number one with Crying.
_ _ So I had these dream things would happen to me.
I found myself at Johnny Cash's house after I lost four Grammys,
you know, so that was actually better than winning a Grammy.
Being at Johnny Cash's house, it's a lot of fun.
Roy Orbison was there and everything.
Oh, gosh, the name drops.
Come back any time you want.
Delighted to have you.
Look forward to the talk.
Congratulations on the Radio Too Fair Award.
Ladies and gentlemen, Don McLean. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ What a
Time now for my next guest.
With a career spanning over 40 years,
he's a legend in the world of music.
Artists such as Madonna and George Michael have covered his songs,
and just last week he was honoured by BBC Radio 2
with a Lifetime Achievement Award for classic songs such as these.
_ [G] Starry, starry night _ _
_ Paint _ _ [Am] your palette blue and grey _ _ _ _
Look [C] out on a summer's day
_ [G] With [D] eyes that know the darkness [G] in my [C] soul
[G] _ I [D] started singing [G] bye, [C] [G] bye Miss [D] America
I [G] drove my Chevy to the levee but the [D] levee was dry
[G] Them good [C] old [G] boys were drinking whiskey [D] and rye
And [Em] singing this'll be the day that [A] I die
_ _ [Em] _
This'll be the day [D] that I die
_ Please _ welcome Don McLean!
_ [A] _
CHEERING
[D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [E] Thank [A] you.
_ _ Well done.
_ [N] _
Well done.
_ _ _ Don, I think to have written one song that stays with the world
when you've gone is one thing, but to have written as many as you have,
do you rather like that, that you hear people humming things
when you go around?
You know, American Pie is such a classic.
Well, you know, back in the day when we were writing songs,
the songs had melodies.
_ _ Yeah, I remember tunes, I remember tunes.
That's why you have the Beatles songs, as famous as they are,
and all these other songs, because they stayed in your head.
You know, the catchy song, it catches you, [G] and it doesn't let you go.
It also seemed in that period when you were songwriting,
you were writing songs, let's say with a mission,
I don't mean that the mission, you know, stopped them being enjoyable songs,
but now there's no sort of underlying kind of thrust to a song,
is there, you know, these were all the sorts of things that were going on,
like the Vietnam War, like people living in little boxes,
you know, Pete Seeger, lots of songs had a message to them in those days.
Well, things had gotten very corporate.
Yeah.
People used to_ _
Music and everything was coming from the ground up,
whereas before it had come from the top down,
and that was a big new thing, you know,
the Rolling Stones and stuff like that, we were making our own music,
you know, in the old days, in the 50s, let's say with Frank Sinatra,
he _ would_he
knew how to sing a song better than anyone,
so they'd give him a great song by Irving Berlin,
so they got the song covered, and they go in the studio,
they make the record with the best musicians,
Axl Stordahl or Nelson Riddle,
record company had the right engineers, _ fabulous, see?
The singer-songwriter thing was the thing that the Beatles started,
you had to sing your own song, write your own song,
produce your own song in the record,
argue with the producer if you didn't like it,
and nobody knew what they were doing,
and making it up by the seat of their pants.
_ _ People always talk about American Pie and say,
Don is very mysterious about the lyric, he'll never explain it,
I think there's a lot of sense in that,
because it can be what anybody wants it to be.
_ There's a level of it that's fun,
and then there's a level of it that's just like a dream,
and if you sort of dumb it down and talk about this kind of thing,
every time I see Carly Simon, they ask her, you know,
who's your Sovane?
_ That's why she doesn't do interviews.
_ _ _ _ She did a couple of years ago, I spoke to her a couple of years ago.
_ _ So that's why I don't talk about it.
Don't blame me at all.
The coincidences that happen in life,
we've just been talking about Elizabeth Taylor selling a Van Gogh.
I mean, Vincent has been such an enormous _ hit for you,
starry, starry night.
He was number one over here, along with Crying,
and American Pie was number two.
I'll play a little bit. _
_ _ [F#] Starry, starry [G] night _
_ _ _ Paint _ _ _ your [Am] palette blue and grey _ _
Look _ _ _ [C] out on a summer's day
_ _ [G] With [Am] eyes that [D] know the darkness [G] in my soul _ _
Shadows on the hills _ _
_ Sketch _ _ _ _ the [Am] trees and the _ daffodils _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] Catch the breeze and the winter chills
_ _ [D]
In colors on the snowy linen [G] land
_ [C] _ _ _ [Em] _ [G] _ _ _
Now I [Am] understand _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ What [Am] _ _
[G] you tried to say [D] to me
[G] _ [E] _ _ [Em] How you suffered [Am] for your sanity
_ _ _ _ [D]
How you [Em] tried to set them free
They would not listen, [A] they did not know how
_ _ _ [C] Perhaps _
_ [D] _ they'll listen [G] _ now
_ _ _ There [N] you go. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
One of the reasons why I like doing this,
is I sit here and I get, you know, you come and do this,
it's wonderful to enjoy it in person,
it makes it very special when you're actually there.
You're doing a tour?
You're coming in the fall?
I don't know, I've done so many,
but the last few have been wonderfully successful.
I got to play at Gloucester and Berry this summer,
was it this summer or last summer? _ _
And another wonderful tour is coming up.
And some of the stuff that you showed here
were links to a little _ _ television documentary
that's been done about my life and career
called American Troubadour,
which those were pictures of me as a kid
with my parents in the backyard and everything,
it's all part of this thing which is going to be on,
and which will be over here probably in a 90-minute version
as well as a CD and all the rest of it.
Does it give you a thrill that people like Fred Astaire
and Elvis Presley have sung your songs?
Oh, I mean, you know, my life has been a dream basically
because I never really was cut out to be a big star.
I was sort of a guy who liked the idea of inventing these songs
and singing with my guitar, and it grew kind of from there,
you know, I ended up in the studio with the Jordan Airs
and Elvis Presley's background group.
The next minute I had a number one with Crying.
_ _ So I had these dream things would happen to me.
I found myself at Johnny Cash's house after I lost four Grammys,
you know, so that was actually better than winning a Grammy.
Being at Johnny Cash's house, it's a lot of fun.
Roy Orbison was there and everything.
Oh, gosh, the name drops.
Come back any time you want.
Delighted to have you.
Look forward to the talk.
Congratulations on the Radio Too Fair Award.
Ladies and gentlemen, Don McLean. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ What a