MacArthur Park — that 7½-minute "cake out in the rain" song that mesmerized us

Three fab versions - Richard Harris, Donna Summer, Maynard Ferguson

Rock ’n’ Roll with Me is a daily email newsletter (except Sunday) presenting one or more of my favorite danceable rock ’n’ roll songs, from the sixties onwards, along with some fun facts and memories.

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Our song of the day

Richard Harris (1968) - the pop version

Only an actor of Richard Harris’ caliber could have imbued his debut pop song with so much emotion and pathos that we were willing to listen to all 7½ minutes — twice as long as your average pop song — over and over again on the radio and on our turntables and make it a top hit across the English-speaking world.

That song, “MacArthur Park,” which debuted in April 1968, is also famous for its ‘out there’ lyrics that bemused and stymied us. (A melting park? A cake with green icing left in the rain? You just can’t take it, like, why exactly?)

But that lyrical ‘infamy’ aside, I think what made the song so unique and special, and so popular, was the story that it told and the emotional journey that it took us on. A journey all of us could relate to — the loss of ‘the one,’ the love of our life, with no hope of getting that person back. The loss of a lifetime.

Take a close listen and then I’ll say more. (And please don’t hesitate to post your own views in the comments.)

OK, now let’s look at the classic and brilliant story structure behind the emotions of this song, delivered in four acts or ‘movements.’ In the first act, our poor downhearted singer laments the loss of his one true love and plays a movie in his head of cherished images from their meetings in MacArthur Park. We are right there with him, mired in the tragedy of his loss, when, all of a sudden, he snaps himself out of it (around 2:30) and puts on a brave face for the future. “I will go on and live my life and have more loves, although I will never forget her, my true love, and I will always wonder why,” he tells us, trying to be courageous and resolved. The third act begins around 4:50 with a frenetic instrumental section, as our downtrodden hero tries to distract himself from his pain with fast-paced and intense activity, as we do when we’re trying to forget someone. But this doesn’t work! In the last part of the song (around 6:30), he returns back to lamenting his loss, but now he feels utter devastation as he realizes that he will never have a love like that again, ending on an absolutely heartbreaking crescendo of the words “Oh no!” as he, no doubt, looks to the heavens asking “Why? Why couldn’t I have this, as others have? What did I do to deserve a life without true love?!”. A classic tragedy if ever there was one.

At least, that’s my take. The song is, in a nutshell, an existential howl of despair at being denied the love we most need in life to make it joyful and meaningful. And, boy, did songwriter Jimmy Webb and new popstar Richard Harris hit that song out of the park.

You’re probably still wondering about those lyrics. I cover that, as well as the story behind the song, in the fun facts section below.

Donna Summer (1978) - the highly danceable disco version

We couldn’t ask for a more different version than the one put out ten years later by the “Queen of Disco,” Donna Summer, who ruled the airwaves between 1976 and 1984 with a hit in the top 40 every single year. This version not only sounds upbeat, but also comes across not as a lament or howl of despair but as a declaration of empowerment after a breakup with a decidedly undeserving paramour.

This version did even better than Richard’s, being one of Donna’s four number one singles and 14 top-ten singles, as well as bringing her her first Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. It is also the only one of composer Jimmy Webb’s hits to reach the number one position in the Billboard Top 100 — although he did receive the Grammy for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) in 1969 for the Richard Harris version.

Don’t worry, you won’t be dancing for 7½ minutes to this one. Donna’s single below is only four minutes, but you can find a much longer version and her popular “MacArthur Park Suite” medley on her Live and More album (1978) and the deluxe edition of her Bad Girls album (1979). Got your dancing shoes on?

Her singles version is noticeably different from Richard’s, with only one-and-a half of the original verses and the middle movements dropped. I particularly like the horns in this arrangement.

There’ll be a bit more about this version in fun facts below.

Maynard Ferguson (1971) - the slow dance jazz version

This a bonus version by jazz great Maynard Ferguson for those of you who like to slow dance with your honey. Ten minutes, different tempos and moods — grab your partner and enjoy.

Some fun facts

• Let’s get right to it — those lyrics! Jimmy Webb has not left us hanging, explaining in interviews that the lyrics are both literal and symbolic. They’re literal in the sense that he really did see the things he described in the verses — the men playing checkers, the cake left out in the rain — while meeting up with Susie Horton in MacArthur Park, what he calls a “musical collage of this whole love affair” (Newsday, October 12, 2014). And, as he told Wayne Robins two decades earlier, they’re symbolic in the sense that the song is about a love lost. “Something beautiful, something precious, had been left untended and lost, and could never be regained.”

• When Wayne suggested that the lyrics were “daring for a pop song at the time,” Jimmy pushed back by citing the surreal imagery in other songs of that era, such as Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Moody Blue’s “Nights in White Satin,” and Jefferson’s Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” and calling it the “nonsense of the late sixties.” Very valid point, Jimmy.

• The story behind the Richard Harris version is a really cool one. Jimmy had written the song for the group The Association at the behest of producer Bones Howe, who had asked him for a pop song with several movements and changing time signatures. When Jimmy presented the finished song to him, Bones ended up turning it down, and it may have found itself banished to the Island of Misfit Songs if not for a chance meeting at a political fundraiser between Richard Harris and Jimmy Webb, who happened to be performing on the piano. Richard’s latest film Camelot, in which he played King Arthur opposite Vanessa Redgrave’s Guenevere and Franco Nero’s Lancelot, and in which he sang a number of Lerner and Loewe songs (including “How to Handle a Woman”), and for which he would soon win the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, had just come out, and he was keen to follow up with a pop music record. Richard invited Jimmy to London to “make a record,” and when Jimmy went there and played him his available compositions, Richard wanted “MacArthur Park.”

• Shortly thereafter, the song was recorded in Los Angeles, the musicians including five members of the hit-making Wrecking Crew as well as Jimmy himself on the harpsichord.

• If you want to hear a live version of Richard singing “MacArthur Park” with the London Symphony Orchestra, Jimmy has posted a video of that performance here.

• It was further serendipity for this song when Donna Summer’s producer Giorgio Moroder heard Richard’s version on the radio while driving on the Hollywood Freeway. He’d been on the hunt for a 1960s hit to use as a dance track for Donna and thought “That’s it!”.

• There are close to 200 versions of the song, including covers by many top artists, but I have to say that the Richard Harris version remains my own personal favorite for listening and the Donna Summer version for dancing. Country music fans might favor the Grammy award-winning version by Waylon Jennings (1969).

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Who left the cake out in the rain? That’s what I want to know. And who uses green icing (unless it’s St. Patrick’s Day)?

2. Why does Richard sing MacArthur Park and Donna sings MacArthur’s Park? Are they two different places?

3. Which version do you prefer — pop, disco, or jazz — and why?

4. Have you found your true love, lost them, and penned an award-winning song?

5. Any other thoughts, musings, lamentations?