How Don McLean Rehashed His First Single for His Last US Top 40 Hit

Artists are often acutely aware of the quality of their work. They know which specific songs in their body of work rise to a special level. And if those special songs don’t initially receive the recording that maximizes their potential, it can bother the artists for years.

Don McLean must have felt something similar about a song that he released as his very first single. Ten years later, he returned to it with a new recording, one that turned into his last Top 40 single in the United States.

McLean Finally Makes It

Don McLean had learned his craft throughout the 60s, both by playing extensively in all kinds of live venues and by studying with the best. The legendary folk singer Pete Seeger helped McLean learn his craft as both a songwriter and performer.

Eventually, McLean decided that he was prepared to start recording. Unfortunately, for a while it seemed like he was the only one who felt that way. Record company after record company turned him down. Luckily, he finally found a taker in a new company known as Mediarts.

McLean chose for his first single a song called “Castles In The Air”. It told the story of a guy who wants to leave behind his city-bred girlfriend in favor of a life in the country. Only he can’t quite bring himself to do the deed himself, instead asking someone else to break the bad news to her.

Just Before the Big Time

“Castles In The Air” features many of the qualities for which McLean would become known once he hit the big time. The melody alternately soothes and sighs. McLean makes poetic leaps without being too showy about it. And he articulates the overall theme in effortless fashion.

The song didn’t do much when released to the radio in 1971, however. It made a small dent on Adult Contemporary formats but wasn’t a factor on the pop charts. That could have been due to an arrangement that had McLean singing a bit hastily over guitars that painted the song in a bluegrass light.

McLean hit the big time when his contract was bought out by the much bigger United Artists label that same year. That turn of events gave his music much better exposure. The timing couldn’t have been better, because 1971 was the year that he released his mammoth single “American Pie”.

Sturdy “Castles”

In 1981, Don McLean was basking in a sudden surge of popularity. A cover of the Roy Orbison classic “Crying”, which he recorded in 1978, caught fire in the United Kingdom a few years later. That spurred its release in the US, where the song soared to No. 5 in early 1981.

With that success, the world was once again tuning in to see what McLean had to offer. He decided the time was right for him to revisit “Castles In The Air”. Only this time, he slowed the tempo down and added strings to highlight the prettiness of the tune.

The gambit worked. “Castles In The Air” locked down a No. 36 spot on the pop charts. Since McLean switched over to country not long after that, that ranking would be the last time he’d ever do so well on the American pop charts.

Photo by kpa/United Archives via Getty Images

The post How Don McLean Rehashed His First Single for His Last US Top 40 Hit appeared first on American Songwriter.