Don McLean worried for “monster star” Taylor Swift: “I hope she stays happy”

nme.com:

Don McLean has spoken about the mammoth success of Taylor Swift, and said that he hopes that the pop star can “stay happy” above all else.The 78-year-old American music icon – best known for tracks including ‘American Pie’ and ‘Vincent’ – opened up about his thoughts on Swift in a new interview with The Standard, and expressed how he hopes the singer puts her mental well-being first while dealing with “monster” fame.“She is a person who is an example of what talent and really hard work can accomplish,” he began when asked about the ‘Midnights’ singer.“A lot of people think showbusiness is just something ‘Oh, you’re so wonderful, you should be a star’, Taylor Swift was a star for 15 years before she became a monster star, the size of the galaxy for god sake.“She’s working all of the time and she does everything that she does better than everybody else, whether it’s a video or a performance or songwriting or records or whatever… The only thing is that she stays happy.”He continued: “I’m very fortunate that I’ve had that.

I know how to do that. I have a lot of interests and they sustain me. I don’t go around thinking ‘Man, why don’t I have this?’ or ‘Why don’t I have that?’ – that is the quickest way to be unhappy I can think of.“So, you have to be happy with what you’re doing and a lot of people say well if a song or an album isn’t commercially successful that somehow that’s a negative and I don’t even think of it.

I don’t really think about whether it caught the fancy of the public, it doesn’t matter to me.”McLean, who has sold over 50million records since launching his career in the late ‘60s, has connected with Swift before.