In 1971, Don McLean released the album “American Pie,” and the title song became one of the most famous — and successful — ever made. It came out at a time of major political and social upheaval in America, and captured a feeling of loss. The song runs for over eight minutes, and was named the No. 5 song on the Recording Industry Association of America’s list of “songs of the century.” Now 73, McLean talked with MarketWatch about his most famous song, and a wide range of other topics, including money, stardom, and the music business today.
McLean says he’s made $150 million in his career, and that his degree in finance (from Iona College in 1968) and his smart business manager helped him make the money last — and grow. He looks to make 6% a year on his money, so he owns a lot of bonds, and only two stocks. McLean, who has been married twice and has two children, hates the idea of being in debt, and buys everything with cash — including the four homes he’s owned.
“That’s the problem with being a star or a person with a few bucks. You end up being mollycoddled and you don’t know shit. I’ve known stars who literally were made so dependent on a few people, they didn’t know what to do without them.”
He’s curious about the markets and at one point in the interview said, “I want to ask you something. In a relatively short time, the stock market has gone from like 18000 to 25000. Don’t people think that’s a little strange? It’s shocking.” He then said: “When I grew up, gold was $35 an ounce and pegged to the dollar. Everything was slow and steady. Government bonds under President Carter, if you went out 30 years you could get like 20%! Do you remember that? Imagine getting 20%, locking that in for 30 years? I’d do that in a minute.”
Read on to hear more from the man who wrote an anthem that represented a whole generation.
On money
MarketWatch: What’s the best financial advice you’ve been given?
Don McLean: A guy named James Benenson Jr., who was a very wealthy man and was once my business agent, told me, ‘Don’t ever invest in anything that you don’t like and understand.’ If you enjoy it and understand it and analytically it is a good investment, that’s a great thing. Then your money’s doing something that is pleasant for you. It’s not just a number.
I mostly am a bond investor. I have two stocks: Google GOOG, -0.60% and Amazon AMZN, -0.56% , and that’s all. And I plan to hold those because they are the government, as far as I can see. I’ll probably add to those as we go along. I’ve earned maybe $150 million in my career, and that’s not too bad. And of course taxes were very high in the 1970s — probably 70% or something like that. What I was trying to do was not lose the money that I had worked hard for. Back in the ‘70s I had a lot of 5 and 6 and 7% governments and of course as rates came down I made money. Then, we hit 2008 and it was just a mess and I took everything I had out of governments and invested them all in corporate bonds. Really good companies. And that paid off like crazy. Some of my money is still in corporates and some is now in preferred stocks and so I get a little protection against the market and also benefits from the market. And that’s worked nicely. I try to get, like, a 6% return if I can — 5 or 6%. That’s enough for me.
MarketWatch: Do you have a financial team that you work with?
McLean: No, I work with U.S. Trust in New Jersey and I have a guy there who I’ve worked with for a long time, but I’ve been with U.S. Trust for over 30 years.
MarketWatch: Sounds like you’ve made a lot of smart moves.
McLean: You know it’s just: slow and steady. That’s how I like it. I bought some properties — at one point I had four homes. I sold one and I’m going to sell another and then I’ll have two — one on each coast, that are just incomparable, so I will never sell them. And they’ve gone up a lot. I don’t lend money, and I don’t borrow money. That’s another thing. I don’t have any debts.
MarketWatch: What’s your favorite possession?
McLean: I have a five-string banjo that was played by Erik Darling in my favorite group, The Weavers, in the 1950s. It was used on many of the records that they made. When I open that up, it’s like ‘wow!’
I’ll tell you a quick story. I knew Erik when I was 16 years old. We became friends on the telephone. And he was very famous because he had the song “Walk Right In” with The Rooftop Singers. And he was kind enough to have me play guitar with him. I took the train in from New Rochelle, hung out with him and played. And I saw this banjo that I knew he used when he was in The Weavers. He said, ‘why don’t you take it home?’ I said, ‘oh wow,’ and brought it home and took it apart and cleaned it and loved on it and played it. He didn’t ask for it back, but finally I offered to bring it back to him. He later sold it. Then many, many, many years passed, and all of a sudden the banjo came up for sale, and so I bought it immediately. It’s one of my most prized possessions.
2911 Media
The 1971 album “American Pie.”
MarketWatch: What do you not mind spending a lot of money on?
McLean: I’m a bit of an antiquarian. I love antique furniture, architecture. I’m very particular. When I have a home that I’m in love with, I stay in love with it. And I have absolutely no problem doing whatever it takes to make it better and better. And I love doing it.
MarketWatch: What do you hate spending money on?
McLean: What I hate is to spend money on antique cars and to have them not work. I recently had a 2005 Bentley Arnage. And I loved that car. But that goddamned thing would not work no matter how much money I put into it. That made me mad.
MarketWatch: What’s the last great thing you purchased?
McLean: A BMW. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s a really nice big sedan. White, very nice. It’s three years old with very low mileage. It’s the best car I’ve ever owned.
MarketWatch: Do you make big purchases like that yourself?
McLean: I have people who know what I want. Then I just get my bookkeeper to get the funds where they need to go. I’m very minimal. Nobody works for me. I take care of everything. I don’t have any assistants. I like to learn things. I don’t like people telling me things if I can learn what they know. That’s the problem with being a star or a celebrity or a person with a few bucks. You end up being mollycoddled and you don’t know shit. I’ve known stars, artists who literally were made so dependent on a few people, they didn’t know what to do without them. I don’t like that. I’m a very independent lone wolf type of guy.
On music
MarketWatch: When you say you’ve made $150 million, was that mostly from royalties?
McLean: That would be from publishing money and performing money. Add it all up and it was something like that. And you can imagine, you have all these expenses, and all these people taking percentages and then you have 70% income tax back in the ‘70s. So you were lucky if you ended up with 15%. So if you made a million bucks, and were lucky to do that in 1971, you’d be lucky if you ended up with around $100,000. I was so happy. I made a huge amount of money for that time and I bought a house for $65,000 and had it for almost 30 years. For me, that was it, I could pay the taxes, I had a roof over my head. I had very limited goals.
MarketWatch: I read that you’ve had years where you’ve made $300,000 or more in royalties —
McLean: — I always made more than that. A lot more than that.
MarketWatch: Even now?
McLean: Much more than that.
MarketWatch: Is that because you are still working off of existing contracts from years ago?
McLean: One of the reasons is because of synchronization licensing. Take a song like “American Pie” and put it in a Chevrolet commercial, or in a movie. With that license you can ask for any amount of money you want. So if Chevrolet GM, -0.36% wants to use the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”? They can ask for $5 million and Chevy can say no or yes.
MarketWatch: Did you use “American Pie” in a commercial?
McLean: Oh yeah, twice with Chevrolet.
MarketWatch: If you started out today, wouldn’t you make a lot less?
McLean: If I started today, I might make a lot more, because I might be better than Ed Sheeran. (laughs)
MarketWatch: I often hear that most bands have to tour now to make a lot of money.
McLean: That’s the old game in the music business. ‘Go in the studio and spend a lot of money and make a great record and you’ll make the money on the road.’ And then you put the record out. And they say, ‘make sure you bring everyone on the road and spend a lot on the show and you’ll sell a lot of records.’ Then it’s possible you don’t make money from either. I was a solo act for many years. I always made money. Just me and a guitar and a banjo.
2911 Media
McLean at home.
MarketWatch: You came out with an album in 2018 [”Botanical Gardens”]. Are you happy with how much that made?
McLean: I made a big advance so I don’t really care how much it makes.
MarketWatch: I saw you sold the original transcript for the song “American Pie” in 2015 for $1.2 million. Did you sell other memorabilia?
McLean: I have everything else. The lyrics to “Vincent,” which are 14 pages. The lyrics to most of my songs. I got in the habit of throwing them in a box. I never thought I’d sell them. I have all kinds of things — stage clothes, instruments. I’m just sitting on that. If I sold my catalog, I don’t even want to tell you how much it would be worth. A tremendous amount.
MarketWatch: Do you like that there’s a lot of mystery around the lyrics to American Pie?
McLean: That’s how the song was written. It was written like a dream. You know how — I had a dream the other day and it was so clear. And I woke up and I remembered everything. And then a little while later I couldn’t remember much. And that’s part of what’s in American Pie. I was shooting for something that was so ethereal. And the idea that what I was after would become as famous as it did is absolutely almost not possible. But it did. I write these songs for me — not the audience.
MarketWatch: Do you plan to ever retire?
McLean: If I look pathetic and can’t sing, I’m not gonna go out there. I have my pride. And my vanity. But that’s gonna be tough. It’s everything to me. It’s all I know and all I love to do, and I’m enjoying it enormously.
MarketWatch: Tell me about you current tour.
McLean: This is an ongoing thing. Been going for over a year — 85 shows last year, with 40 or 50 outside the country. This year we’ll probably do as many, and go to Australia and the Far East. And festival shows in Europe.
MarketWatch: When you wrote “American Pie,” did you think of it as an anthem, the way it’s talked about?
McLean: I wanted to write a big song about America. And I didn’t want to write ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ or ‘The Power and the Glory,’ or ‘America the Beautiful’ — those kinds of songs. I wanted to write something that was completely different and modern. And I think I succeeded.
MarketWatch: Do you look around at what’s happening today and think about capturing it in a song?
McLean: No, I’m not interested in doing that anymore because I did it. The promise of America that was the thing we were all brought up with after WWII was in a lot of trouble in the late 60s and early 70s with the Vietnam War and Nixon and all the corruption, But the hope was still there. We had to get things back on track.
Today the corporations and the corporate power, military power have become so enormous, I just — I suppose the best thing would be another good song because there’s not much you can do anywhere else in the street or in Congress. But if you get a good song going, everybody starts to think about it.
This is what Eisenhower warned us about, and it’s happened. He mentioned in a speech the spiritual damage that such an interaction between the military and the corporate world would have — that is represented by the non-music that we hear, which passes itself off as music. And that is a reflection of people’s souls and how they feel.
