IT’S nearly 40 years since Don McLean first sang about “the day the music died” in his hit song American Pie, which uses the death of Buddy Holly as a metaphor for the American Dream.

But the hour of music’s demise could be getting closer, as Don has said his new album, Addicted To Black, will be his last.

“I’ve said this will be the last studio album, although I’ll still tour and make music,” says the 64-year-old songwriter from his London hotel room.

“If this record can find me an audience who are prepared to continue to buy my CDs and are interested in what I’ve got to say, then there could be something worth carrying on for.

“I’m not interested in internet sales or making CDs to hawk at gigs. I’ve got 40 albums in print at the moment, and hundreds of songs available to download.

“There’s page upon page about me on the internet, and who knows how many performance clips on the YouTube – and people already know those songs, so why would they take a chance on material they haven’t heard before?”

It would be easy to view Don as a man out of time, at odds with the modern world, overtaken by the march of progress – but his stance is not as clear-cut as that.

“I’ve done special albums for the internet – a Christmas album, an album of children’s songs – which I’ve recorded myself and done the artwork for, all that kind of thing.

“I’ve got pretty good at it too. I know what it takes to make a record – but you’re on the fringes with that stuff.

“I need a support system behind me. I need to make records with people I can bounce ideas off.

“Record companies were far from perfect, but there were guys there who knew a lot of stuff – far more than I did – and they were good to have around when you’re making a record.

“These days a musician can record his part then email it to a producer, who can add it to a vocal performance from a singer – and nobody needs to step out from behind their computer. It’s all so antiseptic and non-human.”

Don keeps returning to how he fell in love with music. Born in a dormitory suburb of New York, he suffered long periods of sickness as a child when asthma would confine him to bed for weeks on end.

“I wasn’t born in Memphis, or New Orleans, or way out West, a place with tradition.

“I came from a bedroom community in New York that would empty in the days and fill up at night when the husbands came home from the city.

“This was 1950, 51, 52, and I fell in love with the radio. TV was just coming in, but I would hear a hit song on the radio and spend all day waiting to hear it again and then listen to it intently.

“It was almost a psychedelic experience, hearing these little fantasies broadcast on the radio.

“And I’m still that child. That’s the key if you want to understand me.

“All I ever wanted to do was make records that I wanted to hear on the radio, and that’s what I’ve done – and not just American Pie.

“Vincent is an astonishing record. I can’t believe anyone would want to hear this song in which one guy sings to another guy.

“That imagery startled me when I wrote it and I still feel like that now.

“But there are other songs too. Castles in the Air, the people like that one. When I sing Crying they go nuts – then there’s And I Love You So, Since I Don’t Have You.”

Given that Addicted To Black may be Don’s last record release, it’s apt that it comes with his first publicity photo on the inner sleeve, capturing him as a 19-year-old, banjo-picking folk singer.

The album also sees Don in reflective, even morose mood.

“Maybe it’s the Scot in me, the Celt, but when I get into myself, stuff tends to come out like that.

“Listen, I have a great life – a terrific marriage, two great kids, I do a wonderful job that I love – I’m not an unhappy person by any means. I’m an idiot.

“No, I mean that. I have to tell the truth in what I say and what I sing about. I have to face the facts.

“If I’m feeling a certain way the day I write a song then that’s how it must come out.

“So if Addicted To Black sounds dark then I must have been feeling that way.”

Factfile

• Boney M’s song Rivers of Babylon is based on Don’s song Babylon, a version of Psalm 137.

• Don has only ever lived in three homes in his entire life.

• Vincent is played daily at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and a copy of the sheet music is buried in a time capsule with Van Gogh artefacts.

• Don won the folk singing contest at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.

• American Pie was named the fifth greatest song of the 20th century in a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts behind This Land Is Your Land, Over the Rainbow, Respect and White Christmas.

• Songwriter Lori Lieberman wrote Killing Me Softly With His Song after seeing Don perform his song Empty Chairs in concert.

• George Michael’s version of Don’s song The Grave was the first anti-war song sung in protest at America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.