One of this weekend's Premier Radio re-broadcasts of "American Top 40" this weekend is from April 8, 1972. The biggest mover in the Top 40 that weekend belonged to the man best known for his oral recitation of the history of rock 'n roll up until then, Don McLean, who hit No. 1 with his classic eight-minute opus "American Pie.
"Vincent" moved up 10 places from No. 35 to No. 25 and would just miss out on the Top 10 a few weeks later, peaking at No. 12. "Vincent" is about the renowned Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, whose life and time were filled with little happiness and mostly torment in spite of the beautiful paintings he put on canvas, such as "The Sower," "Sorrowing Old Man," "The Potato Eaters" and "The Starry Night," the beautiful but dark work that inspired McLean to pen "Vincent."
Born March 30, 1853 in Zundert, a town in the southern part of the Netherlands, van Gogh showed an affinity to paint at an early age and wanted to pursue that love of it, but always found resistance to his work from other well-known artists of the time. Meanwhile, he was suffering from an identity crisis as a youngster and would later claim that his youth was "gloomy and cold and sterile." As a late teen, he fell in love with the daughter of a landlady he was staying with, but she rejected him. Another woman who was seven years older than he was and who befriended van Gogh later in life, also rejected the idea of getting married and refused to see him ever again. His ideas of religion were met with resistence, so much so that he failed tests twice to become a pastor at two theological institutions.
He had little money in his life and whatever money he had, he spent it on his craft and artwork and rarely ate. He never ate meat, according to his story, and was withering away as an adult from excessive pipe smoking, a poor diet, too much drinking and overwork. Committed to mental institutions twice for a short time, he spent a good amount of his adult life just getting any kind of recognition from the artists of the day, including fellow post-impressionist and Frenchman Paul Gauguin. Gauguin had a love for van Gogh's work and the two would swap exchange works while making what little money they had off of them.
By the end of his life, though, van Gogh had just about given up. And as a reported "gift" to Gauguin when he found out that the artist was leaving France before Christmas 1888, the 35-year-old van Gogh one night cut his left ear off to give to him. For years, the story had been reported (including by Casey Kasem on AT40) that van Gogh had cut his ear off for the admiration of a young prostitute at a Paris brothel, but van Gogh, now having his head wrapped in a bandage, walked to the brothel both he and Gauguin had frequented and gave the doorman the so-called "gift" to give to the fellow painter.
It was fair to say that van Gogh was suffering through more and more psychotic episodes. In July 1890, van Gogh took a revolver that reportedly and strangely was never found and shot himself in the chest. Taken to a nearby hospital, he would die 29 hours later on July 29, 1890, his last words to his brother Theo being, "The sadness will last forever."
McLean was always intrigued by fellow artists, though they painted for a living and he wrote words and music. And he read a book on van Gogh, fascinated enough that he took references of the artist's famous paintings and made references of the finer points in those paintings in this song ("weathered faces lined in pain / are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand" and "sketch the trees and the daffodils"). McLean realized how dark and gloomy van Gogh's work was and in "Vincent," he made van Gogh into a beautiful but tragic figure. It was in those paintings, though, that McLean realized that what van Gogh was doing even in the darkest of pictures was "setting people free" from where they were, who they were and what they were doing in them.
This is why the album "American Pie" is a great work but sometimes under-appreciated because most people know the title song and that's it. "Vincent" was as much tragic and beautiful as "American Pie" was nostalgic and driving.
And while the song may not have gotten total adulation in the U.S., across the Atlantic in England, the song was truly accepted. It was a No. 1 hit in early June 1972, something "American Pie" never did there.
Most people who hear the lyrics -- like myself for a long, long time -- knew "Vincent" as a tragic figure in art history. But to read the story, you can understand why Don McLean had those feelings for Vincent van Gogh. He was a beautiful artist tormented by personal demons that won out in the end.
McLean conveyed that persona in a beautiful song that has lived on for three generations now.
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