You can’t see the sun for the acrid smoke. Wildfires are still burning across the state. The singer-songwriter behind the 1971 classic American Pie is speaking from his home in Palm Desert, a town in California where he is now well into what he calls the “desert phase” of his life. I didn’t know what I was going to do without him. A few days later, his father dropped dead right in front of him. “Because it’s going to happen,” the boy replied. “Don’t be ridiculous, Donny, why would you say such a thing?” she said. Distraught, he ran to tell his grandmother. When Don McLean was 15 years old, he had a premonition that his father was going to die.