probably the most famous songwriter in this country, don mclean joins us tonight. mr. on. >> thank you for having me. i watch your show often. >> tucker: thank you, i appreciate that. this is a question every person who has ever driven on an american interstate has asked him or herself.so where is the levee, and what does this mean? what do the lyrics mean? >> well, can i just take a moment and explain, there are many poems and songs in folk music, certainly, that are not particularly, exactly prosaic. that's why they are poetry. but i have an idea -- i had an idea for a big song about america, and i didn't want to write "this land is your land," or some song like that. and i came up with this notion that politics and music flow parallel together, forward,ti through history. so the music you get is related somehow to the political environment that is going on. >> tucker: yes. >> and in the song "american pie," the verses get somewhat more dire each time, until you get to the end. but the good ol' boys are always there, singing, singing "bye,s bye, miss american pie," a

is like that old don mclean song. it doesn't actually mean anything but it moves you anyway. less in the nancy pelosi's rendition of it. >> the republic, if we could keep it, said benjamin franklin, our democracy is what is at stake. the president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt once again the election for his own benefit. the president has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections. >> tucker: maybe we are being too literal here, but what is she telling us? pelosi is telling us that in order to honor the spirit of benjamin franklin, we must suspend our democracy in order to preserve it. there was a time when america, the left was sharp and clear right enough to see the irony in a line like that. we have to torch the village to save it, sure we do, make sense. liberals in 1975 would've laughed pelosi off the stage. democracy means deciding things in elections it was obvious then but somewhere along the line, the left lost interest in democracy and gave up on it completely. by the t