The year I graduated from high school, Don McLean’s “Starry Night” peaked the music charts at number 12 in the U.S. I was charmed by the song but not enamoured. Had I known it was about Vincent Van Gogh, I might have felt differently.

In the fall of 1970, Don McLean was gigging in schools playing guitar and singing. At school one day, he came across Van Gogh’s biography. After reading it, McLean’s heart went boom. The story of the artist’s life really moved him and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. So he sat down and, while looking at a print of Van Gogh’s 1889 painting “Starry Night,” wrote this song on a brown paper bag. The bag is now buried in a time capsule (along with the artist’s paintbrushes) beneath Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum.

McLean, years later in an interview, would say he felt compelled to write a tribute to the misunderstood artist.

Now, I understand what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now.

Sometimes a work of art affects you so much that, mentally, you want to keep holding on to it. So you write a poem or some prose about it. This attempt to verbally represent something visual is known as Ekphrasis/Έκφραση.

Van Gogh’s art has inspired much ekphrasic writing. For example, Anne Sexton wrote an ekphrastic poem about Van Gogh’s painting. But I read Anne’s biography and prefer not to write about her. Charles Bukowski also wrote about Van Gogh. It’s short and starts out like this:

Van Gogh cut off his ear
gave it to a
prostitute
who flung it away in
extreme
disgust.

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Related:  Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Vincent Van Gogh + 10 of the Best Ekphrastic Poems about Pictures + Introduction. The engaging eye: Ekphrasis and twentieth-century poetry + Vincent Van Gogh | The Starry Night | Saint Rémy, June 1889 | MoMa  + See 10 Songs Every Art Lover Should Know  + Burroughs and his `Van Gogh kick’  + Van Gogh and Kerouac + Julio Iglesias Vincent (Starry Starry Night) +

An analysis of W. D. Snodgrass‘s “Van Gogh: ‘The Starry Night’” +