Don McLean - Vincent

This is a song by singer & songwriter Don McLean, Which was written as a tribute to painter Vincent van Gogh. It is often erroneously titled after its opening refrain, "Starry, Starry Night", a reference to Van Gogh's 1889 painting The Starry Night.McLean wrote the lyrics in 1971 after reading a book about the life of Van Gogh, It was released on McLean's 1971 American Pie album; the following year, the song topped the UK Singles Chart for two weeks and peaked at No. 12 in the United States, Where it also hit No. 2 on the Easy Listening chart, Billboard ranked it as the No. 94 song for 1972. The song makes use mainly of the guitar, but also includes the accordion, marimba, and strings, In July 2020, the original handwritten lyrics went up for sale for $1.5 million. Don McLean said the following about the genesis of the song: "In the autumn of 1970 I had a job singing in the school system, playing my guitar in classrooms. I was sitting on the veranda one morning, reading a biography of Van Gogh, and suddenly I knew I had to write a song arguing that he wasn't crazy. He had an illness and so did his brother Theo. This makes it different, in my mind, to the garden variety of 'crazy' – because he was rejected by a woman [as was commonly thought]. So I sat down with a print of Starry Night and wrote the lyrics out on a paper bag, With its bittersweet palette of major and minor chords, "Vincent"'s soothing melody is one of high emotion recollected in tranquillity, Record World called the song "artful", saying that "the Vincent Van Gogh story is told with melody and poetry. Cash Box called it "another of those tunes for people who like to pick apart lyrics and messages, AllMusic retrospectively described the song as "McLean's paean to Van Gogh ... sympathiz[ing] with Van Gogh's suicide as a sane comment on an insane world. The site also said McLean performs "a particularly poignant rendition" of "Vincent" on the 2001 live album Starry, Starry Night. The song was a particular favorite of the rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. #donmclean #Vincent #vincentvangogh #70s #singersongwriter #70smusic #music https://youtube.com/@highflyingbird64...