Don McLean And Why He Wrote The Song Vincent

I was going to say that the song was written after I read a book about Van Gogh and apparently his brother had an illness the same illness he had so the idea formed in my little brain that maybe I would write a song about an artist and I thought well I've never heard a song about an artist before and so I thought that's a good idea and I played it for a bunch of high school kids and after I wrote it and they weren't paying any attention to me and they started listening very carefully and I was almost an unknown at that time so.

​ I thought wow that's an unusual effect to have a song like that on kids, that couldn't care less you know yeah so what I did was just looked at his painting and off of a G chord, I just started to tell his story using the imagery from the painting starry starry night her starry night so I just said starry starry night paint your palette blue and gray look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul shadows on the hills sketch the trees and the daffodils catch the breeze and the winter chills in colors on the snowy linen lane I shouldn't I just would love you to sing all the song and every cell every song before teatime doesn't allow but it's so so beautiful to hear that like this it's a gorgeous music.