The radio on the way home tonight was doing hit songs of 1968. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Macarthur Park before.
WTF?
I mean, cake? In the rain? I can’t take it? WHAT?
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-According to Shiloh Noone, author of Seekers Guide To The Rhythm Of Yesteryear, Webb’s original lyrics mention that the cake was laced with hashish, but this was left out due to legalities. Shiloh adds: “I approached Richard Harris in 1978 in Stellenbosch Lanzerac Hotel South Africa where he was relaxing with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on the porch after a shoot for the soundtrack The Wild Geese. I approached him directly and said what was the cake that melted in the park, Richard Burton looked at Harris pissed out of his mind and said, ‘Oh it’s for you Richard he’s not interested in us darling’… while Elizabeth almost missed her mouth when she brought the cigarette to her lips. They were all heavily under the whisky, Richard Harris looked at me and said… ‘the death of a hippy my boy, the death of a hippy just look at us.'”
-Jimmy Webb (from Q magazine): “It’s clearly about a love affair ending, and the person singing it is using the cake and the rain as a metaphor for that. OK, it may be far out there, and a bit incomprehensible, but I wrote the song at a time in the late 1960s when surrealistic lyrics were the order of the day.”
-MacArthur Park is a real park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
-Weird Al Yankovic wrote a parody of this called “Jurassic Park” about the blockbuster movie of the same name. It is on his 1993 album Alapalooza. (thanks, Steph – SoCal, CA)
YAY! Hope this gives you a new place to surf. I find it interesting to know some of the story behind the songs. I can’t vouche for it’s accuracy, but it’s still fun. 😀
That song made SO much more sense back when I used to do a lot of drugs…….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yz40BexXVY
Donna Summer actually did a pretty good disco version of this song!