Don McLean says Sydney is the inspiration behind his new song ‘Botanical Gardens’.
In an interview with Marco Gandolfi at music-news.com Don McLean explains, “I had been in these gardens in Sydney, Australia adjacent to the Sydney Opera House. I encourage anybody who goes to Sydney or lives in Sydney to go to these beautiful gardens and take a walk. In the course of several tours over there and being in Sydney for a while, I did this every day. Its just a magical place. I would see young families. This place is sort of a dream world of my youth. The idea came to me and wrote this song called ‘Botanical Gardens’. It is like heaven, an out of body experience”.
‘Botanical Gardens’ is the first album from McLean since ‘Addicted To Black’ in 2009 and only his second album of original material since 1995.
“The boys in Nashville made a great track I loved,” he said. “A couple more songs, a few more tracks, in the studio, a bunch more songs and then I worked on them live with the band”. That became the album.
‘Botanical Gardens’ is the centrepiece of the record. “Once I got the idea it seemed to be able to go in a lot of different directions,” he said.
Watch the full interview here:
