MacArthur Park (song)

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"MacArthur Park" is an epic song, written by Jimmy Webb and first performed by Richard Harris in 1968. Harris' seminal recording topped the music charts in Europe, while peaking at number two on the U.S. charts. The song is named after MacArthur Park, a park in Los Angeles, California.

It was an unusual single, running for more than seven minutes, with a long, climactic orchestral break. The lyrics were more symbolic and sentimental than descriptive (featuring the notable line, "Someone left the cake out in the rain"), and were apparently about a lost love and a rendezvous in the park.

The song has been covered more than fifty times, including versions by Waylon Jennings, Glen Campbell, Maynard Ferguson, Liza Minnelli, and most notably, by Donna Summer in a 1978 disco version that topped the U.S. charts, and ran to 6:28 in its full-length album version (3:56 on its single release), and seventeen minutes, forty seconds as part of a medley (the "MacArthur Park Suite", including the songs "One of a Kind" and "Heaven Knows") released by Summer.

A poll by American columnist Dave Barry selected "MacArthur Park" as having the worst lyrics ever recorded.

Parodies and allusions in media

The sentimentality of the song made it an easy target for parody.

"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a version of the song for his album Alapalooza called "Jurassic Park," with new lyrics recapping the plot of the film of the same name.

The comedy series Second City Television aired a sketch where on a 1970s-type music and dance program, Richard Harris (played by Dave Thomas) sings "MacArthur Park". During the orchestral break, he waits in agony to finish the song, and the show moves on to other skits in the meantime.

In an episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa the Beauty Queen", a contestant related to Apu announces that she is going to sing the song in its entirety, while playing the tabla, and the audience laughs at her. They then gasp when she says that she is serious. Later, she is shown performing the last few lines to a bored audience. When she finishes Krusty says "Well...that one kept going and going."

In a Seinfeld episode, George Costanza recalls a scene from his childhood in which he sang the song.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} In another episode, "The Statue", George tries to acquire a statue that could replace one that his parents had years ago, but he broke while singing "MacArthur Park".

It is briefly featured in the film , as a Muzak version, blaring loudly from an airport elevator.

In the movie Vertical Limit, a climber (played by Stuart Wilson) sings this song before he falls off the mountain.

The song was parodied in an Australian musical about the Vietnam War, Pearls Before Swine, as Centennial Park (a Sydney, Australia landmark), featuring lines such as, "the cake you bake is made of lies".

It is referenced on the television series Angel, as the one song Lorne, the musically inclined demon, can use as a weapon without fail ("That high note in "MacArthur Park" is said to "slay 'em every time").

They Might Be Giants make an oblique reference to the song's most famous verse in "It's Not My Birthday". "When this gray world crumbles like a cake/I'll be hangin' from the hope/That I'll never see that recipe again"

At the end of a disastrous guest stint hosting the drivetime show on BBC Southern Counties Radio, the presenters of Top Gear cued up "MacArthur Park" to facilitate an early exit from the building.

In the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "Mistaken Identity", Will and Carlton's cellmate, known as Bob, sings an excerpt from the song.

It turns up in Kinky Friedman's Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned as sung by a character presenting a cake.

In Priscilla,_Queen_of_the_Desert, the character of Mitzi says "Bernice has left her cake out in the rain!"

Quotation

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!

Oh, no

No, no

Despite the rather poetic homage paid to it, the real MacArthur Park became known for being a violent place after 1985 when drug deals, shoot-outs and occasional drownings became somewhat common there. Before the decline of the neighborhood, the park featured the traditional paddle-boats and a large fountain in the center of the lake; the park was a popular middle-class destination for over fifty years. The park has been cleaned up and gentrification is occurring all around the surrounding area of Downtown Los Angeles.

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External links

[Lyrics]

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