Talk:Vincent (Don McLean song)

Titles of paintings[edit]

The article originally said "The song also mentions the title of a different painting by Van Gogh in each of its lines." I changed that last word to stanzas ("Now I understand" — which word is the title?), but I'm still not sure that's right. Does it mention the title of each painting (or indeed any painting, besides the obvious one), or merely describe them? --zenohockey 02:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It merely describes them e.g. "Flaming flowers that brightly blaze" refers to the sunflowers 80.7.144.151 08:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I inserted an item into the "Interpretation" section regarding a humorous piece by Kevin Guilfoile, at McSweeney's. But I don't know how to add a reference and the retrieved date. Here's the url: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2001/01/12donmclean.html Retrieved Jan 26, 2011 Sorry I couldn't do this all on my own.Frank Lynch (talk) 03:47, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lyric section[edit]

This section only includes the entire song. This is a blatant copyright right offense and is not fair use, unless if partial parts of the song are used for analysis. Thus this section is removed. ResurgamII 14:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The explanation that "It is also thought that the song intends to portray van Gogh's tough relationship with his family. They were a wealthy family who did not accept him for his schizophrenia ("for they could not love you") and never understood his will to help the poor" may not be the only possibility. I have read that the part "for they could not love you But still your love was true" may reflect more on the painitings themselves being unable to receprocate any love and yet they were Vincents total Love. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.195.86.40 (talk) 23:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Off-topic chat

Note that Van Gogh likely did not commit suicide. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-15328583 77Mike77 (talk) 18:53, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article talk page is for discussing improvements to this article. If you wish to discuss changing the accepted version -- that van Gogh committed suicide -- please discuss the issue Talk:Vincent van Gogh. - SummerPhD^v2.0 01:55, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect[edit]

Why does "Starry Starry Night" redirect here? Shouldn't it go to the album? 76.25.6.22 05:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because it is a different "name" under which this song is known (if one does't know the true title). It is much more likely that searchers are searching for the song, not for the album. I support the redirect to here.

Steue (talk) 13:03, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are responding to a very old -- and outdated -- comment. At present Starry Starry Night does not redirect here. It goes -- as it should -- to a disamb page, listing the painting (The Starry Night), this song, the album and a film (not related to the song). - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:49, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The song[edit]

The four paragraphs entitled 'The song' are excellently written, and convey well the essence of what Van Gogh and his work were about. Well done to the author of this section, if it is original work!

I intend making a few small tweaks to this section, but do not intend to do much more than that. The part of Van Gogh's life which I feel has been omitted are the years he spent as a teacher and preacher in Ramsgate, Kent and Isleworth, London – and as a missionary in Hainaut, Belgium – and his lack of success (as he perceived it) in both places were contributory factors to his later disillusionment. Cheers – Agendum (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the article it says "There are also several lines that may allude to van Gogh's self-portraits: perhaps in "weathered faces lined in pain / are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand",". I believe that this reference in the song is to the pencil drawings Van Gogh did of Pensioners in Paris (I believe). These are fascinating and little known to the public. Rcecc (talk) 23:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC) rcecc 30 November 2009[reply]

Query regarding the funeral of George Best[edit]

Was this not sung by Brian Kennedy at George Best's funeral service in Belfast? I'm certain a song of that title was performed at the funeral.....?
Noble Korhedron 02:26, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just modified 2 external links on Vincent (song). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}). This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Awkward wording needs to be fixed.[edit]

"The song makes use mainly of guitar"77Mike77 (talk) 18:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"created"[edit]

I have removed "It was created on the 100th anniversary of the midpoint of Van Gogh's life."

The "midpoint of Van Gogh's life" (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) would have been somewhere in late January or early February 1872. The imagined "100th anniversary of the midpoint" (is that a thing?) would thus be late January or early February 1972. The lyrics were written "In the autumn of 1970". The album was released 24 October 1971. No matter how you define the song's "creation" (writing the lyrics, writing the music, recording, etc.; each of which might be on more than one day), the song was written, recorded and released before this imagined anniversary.

Whether the unsourced claim originated with McLean, his publicity machine or an imaginative fan is immaterial. It's nonsense. - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:00, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who added the pseudo-symmetry of the anniversary also added that the song, which peaked at #12, "coincidentally" stayed on the chart for 12 weeks.[1] The source doesn't back this up and the length of time on varikous charts is unmentioned for all of the other charts. I've removed it. - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 July 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. The majority opinion cites the WP:INCOMPDAB guideline to argue that there should not be a primary topic for the Vincent (song) title, which uses parenthetical disambiguation. Most editors believe that the Don McLean song does not qualify for partial disambiguation, which is used very rarely and not supported by the guideline. (non-admin closure) — Newslinger talk 07:49, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vincent (song) → Vincent (Don McLean song) – Expansion of the parenthetical qualifier to include the name of the singer-songwriter would make the main title header analogous to Vincent (Sarah Connor song). Although an argument could be made that the Vincent (disambiguation) page should have no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as of this writing, it is the male given name Vincent and not the Don McLean song that is the dab page's primary topic. As for Vincent (song), it should redirect to Vincent (disambiguation)#Music. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 06:12, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Uncontroversial, just do it. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above, current title is a partial disambiguaton. PC78 (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:TWODABS. There are only two songs titled "Vincent" with articles on WP. This one gets at least 4 times the pageviews of the Connor song[2] (and that's if we assume all views of the Connor song come through the hatnote on this article; otherwise the ratio is closer to 8:1). By forcing people who search for or link to "Vincent (song)" to land on an unwanted dab page, we create an extra step for the large majority wanting the famous song, while anyone looking for the Connor song is no better off clicking through a dab page than they are clicking through the hatnote already at the top of this article. Station1 (talk) 16:48, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Station1. As before if you disagree with WP:DISAMBIGUATION then start a RFC. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:22, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:TWODABS are both part of WP:DISAMBIGUATION and, as mentioned, support the current title of this article. Station1 (talk) 06:45, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

they completely do not. The only person who cannot read these guidelines is you. This is beginning to become disruptive. You are simply not reading what the guideline says. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:43, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How then do you explain the other editors who also cite the guideline in similar discussions referenced below? Station1 (talk) 05:54, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support I'm not convinced that the ratios provided by Station1 come close to allowing a WP:PDAB exception, readers searching for "Vincent (song)" would quickly be able to find either song on the "Music" section of the DAB. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:00, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But wouldn't 100% of readers find either song just as quickly by (a) already being at the right place (80%-89% of the time) or (b) clicking on the hatnote (11%-20% of the time)? Station1 (talk) 18:17, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the proposal is seemingly uncontroversial, topics as ingrained in pop culture as this one tend to invite disagreement. If the Vincent (disambiguation) page had only two entries, with one primary topic, the Don McLean song, and one subsidiary topic, the Sarah Connor song, then both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:TWODABS would be applicable. However, the Vincent dab page has 28 entries, not counting its three "See also" entries, Saint Vincent, Vince and Vincentia. Anyone searching for Don McLean's composition may or may not be aware of the need to type the parenthetical qualifier "(song)" and will most likely simply type "Vincent" or "Vincent Don McLean" or "Starry Starry Night", which has its own dab page.

WP:PARTIALDABS are extremely rare on Wikipedia — in fact, I cannot think of a single one that had been discussed at WP:RM and attained consensus as the most apt resolution. A few renowned films that are not primary topics have had such discussions, but none have agreed that one entry should be titled "Great Movie (film)" and the other should be Great Movie (19XX film). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:05, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These proposals aren't uncontroversial. There's a similar RM right now at Talk:Lemmings (video game) where discussion is leaning toward oppose. Recently, Alabama (band) had an RM and RfD that decided it was the primary topic (I bet most people don't even know there's another one). Vincent is irrelevant to this discussion because the proposal does not affect anyone searching for "Vincent" in any way; it affects only people who take the trouble to search for "Vincent (song)", whom it inconveniences slightly for no benefit.

These titles are unusual simply because there aren't all that many cases where a word or term is obviously not the primary topic for that word but is obviously the primary topic for the class it is part of. But they do exist. Besides Alabama, examples include People (magazine), Jane Seymour (actress), Tommy (album), Nirvana (band). If you include redirects there are even more, like Thriller (album) and Born to Run (song), because most people will know who the artists are without looking. Station1 (talk) 23:24, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The mention of "uncontroversial" was intended as a response to the initial comment above (07:45, 3 July 2019) which seemed to suggest that since Vincent (Don McLean song) is, as of this writing, a redlink, Vincent (song) could have been simply moved without a nomination at RM. However, with an iconic title such as this one, there should be a historical record of the discussion, as in the four examples you provided where consensus leaned towards leaving the partial dab as the main title header — Alabama (band) and Nirvana (band) as well as Tommy (album) and People (magazine}. The discussion regarding Jane Seymour was on the queen's talk page and did not specifically propose a vote aimed at moving Jane Seymour (actress) to Jane Seymour (American actress).

These four partial dab examples are, indeed, extremely rare and, among the two redirects that you mentioned, there is no discussion confirming that there is consensus for Born to Run (song) to redirect to Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen song) rather than to Born to Run (disambiguation)#Music. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:56, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Since the Sarah Connor song is only a few months old, it may be a good idea to wait some time before assessing how prominent it is compared to the Don McLean song. Magic9Ball (talk) 20:30, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the Sarah Connor song is proposed for deletion as not meeting the notability standard expressed in WP:NSONG, its relative prominence to Don McLean's composition is immaterial. The sole topic in this discussion is the WP:MOS issue of Wikipedia:Partially disambiguated page names. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:50, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all. WP:Partially disambiguated page names "is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." PRIMARYTOPIC and TWODABS are guidelines, and WP:CONCISE is policy. The fact that the Connor song's pageviews have likely already peaked in early June after its album's release, and even so are a fraction of McLean's, is very relevant to a decision. Station1 (talk) 23:24, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, WP:Partially disambiguated page names has had community support in nearly every discussion including, apparently, this one. Some songs are always more popular than others and the biggest hits become primary topics. Otherwise, there is no reason to suppose that every user of Wikipedia, casual or otherwise, will immediately know of the need to append the parenthetical qualifier "(song)" to the search term, rather than simply typing "Vincent" or "Starry Starry Night". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:56, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"it has had community support in nearly every discussion". If so, why don't you make it a policy again? That would make these RMs superfluous. © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 11:58, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. An article already disambiguated is not a primary of anything. No reason to grasp at that holy "primary" at all cost. --Gonnym (talk) 22:42, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support, if the Beatles aren't primary to a British rapper that cannot spell correctly in English, why this song should be primary? © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 01:58, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Partial disambiguation is, at least generally, not a good practice (e.g., per WP:INCOMPDAB), and including the artist name in the title of an article is typically helpful to produce a cogent title. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:42, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"And how you tried to set them free"[edit]

What/whom did Don McLean mean with/in this line? --Steue (talk) 14:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]