"macarthur park" richard harris

[niyad]

Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

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 around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing 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!

There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky
And after all the loves of my life
Oh, after all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why

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
Oh no!

[hlthe2b]

1. I know that was a silly song (and supposedly may have been written by Jimmy Webb on a dare)

but I always liked the way Harris sang it. It really was a beautiful song if one can get past the lyrics)...

[elleng]

2. I do like the melody,

and rarely pay attention to the lyrics. Thanks for posting.

[rsdsharp]

3. I agree

And as a former disc jockey, it had the added benefit of being nearly seven and a half minutes long -- important for certainn calls of nature.

[niyad]

4. it was indeed a beautiful song, and, like you, I loved the way harris did it.

(this all started yesterday with music from "camelot". and learning that richard burton really did have a great voice for singing!!)

[Honeycombe8]

9. That was great. Ah, the memories. Lovely song and performance. Thanks! nt

[Zambero]

5. I never quite got those lyrics

I like the recording though and the incongruous piano tour-de-force seemingly there to balance out Richard Harris' vocal and the (corny or profound?) verses he sings. Perhaps there's some symbolism there, with a carefully-baked cake put out in the rain by some unknown person, with the green icing melting away in the process. Jimmy Webb also wrote straightforward pop hits for Glen Campbell and the 5th Dimension. Perhaps this was his "see if you can top that, Bob Dylan" contribution to the pop charts.

[niyad]

6. whatever his reason for writing, we still enjoy the song!!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. It's a breakup song

"MacArthur Park" was written and composed by Jimmy Webb in the summer and fall of 1967 as part of an intended cantata. Webb initially brought the entire cantata to The Association, but the group rejected it. The inspiration for the song was his relationship and breakup with Susie Horton,[4] who later married Robert Ronstadt, a cousin of singer Linda Ronstadt. MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles, was where the two occasionally met for lunch and spent their most enjoyable times together. At that time (the middle of 1965), Horton worked for a life insurance company whose offices were located just across the street from the park. When asked by interviewer Terry Gross what was going through his mind when he wrote the lyric, Webb replied that it was meant to be symbolic and referred to the end of a love affair. In an interview with Newsday in October 2014, Webb explained:

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.

Webb and Horton remained friends, even after her marriage to another man. The breakup was also the primary influence for "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," another song written and composed by Webb. After his relationship breakup, Webb stayed for a while at the residence of Buddy Greco, upon whose piano the piece was composed and originally dedicated. Greco closed all his shows with this number for forty years.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park_(song)

Usually rain is a metaphor for tears. Bob Dylan used that in two of his songs "Just like a woman" and "You're a big girl now"

[WePurrsevere]

8. Thank you, I always took it as a break up song but...

It now makes even more sense and It's nice to know that what I thought it meant wasn't that far off including my thinking that the cake was a metaphor for an ending relationship with "it took so long to bake it" referring to the time and energy we often put into a relationship only to have it end and "I'll never have that recipe again" referring to our knowing that even in other relationships down the road it's never quite the same.

It's a sad but very beautiful song.

[niyad]

12. thank you for that information. it was always pretty evident that it was a break-up song, but

nice to have confirmation.

[Honeycombe8]

10. I didn't either. I think it's about the end of a love affair. Or maybe she died. nt

[catchnrelease]

11. I actually have the album this song is on

Because Camelot was my favorite movie at that time and I was besotted with Richard Harris, of course I had to buy the album when it came out. I still have it in a box somewhere around here, lol.

[niyad]

13. I had it when it came out. gone somewhere along the way.

[Rhiannon12866]

15. My brother and I had the 45

Actually, he still does.

[oldcynic]

14. You know the old saying: If you remember the 60s...

...you weren't there. Ingest the right things and this song will tear your guts out.

[niyad]

16. a glass of chardonnay?

[oldcynic]

17. of course. What else could you think!