We live in a world of empty spectacle, the world of spectacle rock, songs you can't remember, it's all about the expression of money, power and kind of empty and fascistic. Where technology has changed society, where people are not using their brains as much, not seeing the bigger picture but constantly looking down at the cellphone and not seeing the bigger picture. Today's songwriter need to be on outside, find their own trip if you will and find a way to connect from a place that no one has heard before. It might be taken as weird but that is what makes it unique.

Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world.

When I go on the road now, which is less than before, but still more than I'd like to, I think of myself primarily as a singer. Not a songwriter, not a celebrity, just a man who likes to sing.

As I watched him on the stage, my hands were clinched in fists of rage. No angel born in hell, could break that Satan's spell.

There we were all in one place, a generation lost in space.

I have no idea how I do anything. I never have. You know I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call "Don McLean" when I was probably in high school. And I have been doing this for 40 years, adding songs and writing things, cobbling together albums, doing live things, you know, albums and tours. And then I have records on the charts. I have no idea how this happened.