Don Mclean’s recording of the song ”Crying” went to No. 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1981.

It became his second greatest hit.Don Mclean recalled in an interview -”I had met Roy Orbison in 1972 at Johnny Cash’s house after the Grammys that were in Nashville. Years later around 1979, I recorded “Crying” because I had a nervous breakdown in the ‘70s, and I knew what it felt like to have that kind of emotional turmoil. So I understood that song, and also felt I could sing it in a different way, and that I could make it more dramatic than Roy’s version. Roy’s version was different—it was more of a rumba of some kind. Nobody can touch Roy’s original record, of course. But I felt I could do something different with it, that would add to it.”