Don McLean says computers have destroyed modern songwriters’ brain cells.
The ‘American Pie’ hitmaker believes the ability to write a classic has been taken away from the current crop of music-makers because technology has “prevented young people from concentrating”.
In a candid interview with Britain’s The Times newspaper, McLean explained: “I don’t think they have any brains. The phone and the computer have prevented young people from concentrating, and you have to concentrate to write a song like ‘A Day in the Life’, ‘Good Vibrations’ or ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’. I’m a philosopher. I like to think things through. I’m not saying I’m anything special, but myself, the Beatles and Dylan had long periods of silence and contemplation when nobody cared about us very much. It allows a person to develop. Now people are poked with information from the day they are born. Ooh, Kim Kardashian has a fat a*s! Who cares?”
Elsewhere, the 75-year-old singer insisted he “doesn’t care” about Bob Dylan after the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ hitmaker took issue with allegedly being the “jester” in 1971’s ‘American Pie’.
Referring to the lines “When the jester sang for the king and queen” and “The jester stole his thorny crown”, the 80-year-old music legend had moaned in 2017: “Sure, the jester writes songs like ‘Masters of War’, ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’, ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ — some jester.”
However, Dylan has never quizzed McLean on the lyrics in person.
The ‘Vincent’ star insisted: “Never met him. I did meet his son Jakob, though, and he said to me, ‘Is he the jester?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to answer that, but he’d make a pretty darn good jester, wouldn’t he?’ I gotta tell ya, I don’t really care about Bob Dylan. He doesn’t mean anything to me.”