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The Story of MacArthur Park

52 years ago in 1968 I heard the song MacArthur Park for the first time. It was sung by Irish singer Richard Harris. Top 40 AM radio was the primary vehicle for hearing new music, and living in the New York area, WABC was the dominant top 40 station.

The song was 7-1/2 minutes long, and beyond its extraordinary length for a top 40 song, I remember liking its orchestration but it was clearly not typical top 40 material. It was complex and musically exciting. However, at the time I thought (wrongly) that the lyrics were insipid and ridiculous. Leaving a cake in the rain, what’s that about? Rolling Stone named it one of the top 10 worst songs of the 60s. Still the music always moved me, and even today I listen to it often on Spotify in my daily walks.

But having thought more about the song, I hoped that there had to be more to the lyrics, and did some homework.

The song was written by Jimmy Webb and was originally created for the group The Association, who sang the songs Never My Love, Along Comes Mary, Everything That Touches You, Cherish, and more. Records by The Association in that era were big hits. However, he presented to them at 22 minutes! And they felt the music and ­­­­lyrics were too ambitious, and they passed on it. But Richard Harris was the beneficiary of their rejection.

I more fully appreciate that Jimmy Webb, its creator, was an extraordinary songwriter, and have since realized that most of his hit songs are in my Spotify 200 “liked songs” that I listen to regularly. I had no idea I liked his songs so much, but how’s this list of Jimmy Webb songs?

Up, Up & Away—5th Dimension

By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman, Galveston—all sung by the late Glen Campbell

The Worst That Could Happen—Brooklyn Bridge

All I Know—Art Garkunkel

And obviously the classic, MacArthur Park

Here’s the background story of the song’s lyrics:

The inspiration for the song was his relationship and breakup with his girlfriend Susie Horton. MacArthur Park in Los Angeles was where the couple would occasionally meet for lunch in the mid-60s and spent their most enjoyable times together

In an interview in 2014 Webb said,

“Everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park. … Back then, I was kind of like an emotional machine, like whatever was going on inside me would bubble out of the piano and onto paper.”

I now have a much different respect for the song, and its meaning. I no longer wish this great music had better lyrics, and I now understand how the lyrics and music now belong together. I feel the angst he felt in recounting his lost love and their intimate moments. The ending of the song still takes my breath away like no other.

Listen to it again, or for the first time, and appreciate its brilliance. I hope you do.

MacArthur Park lyrics

Spring was never waiting for us, dear
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no

I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground beneath your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing Chinese checkers by the trees

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left my cake out in the rain
And I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no, oh




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