MacArthur Park

[Albin]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 4:36pm

So I'm watching American Idol from Tuesday night again and listening to Carrie sing "MacArthur Park" and I am scratching my head thinking "What the hell is this song all about?" Does anyone know?

[Dolly_Levi]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 5:11pm

I am not sure and Carrie wasn't either.

When asked by Ryan she replied that she had no idea, something about a cake in the rain, or something.

Paging Donna Summer...girl, you got some splainin' to do.

[Bluemoon]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 5:36pm

In an interview in 1998, songwriter Jimmy Webb had this to say about his "misunderstood work of art" (his words, NOT mine):

"I always think that whatever is art, need not and should not be explained, as someone once said. "But I'll tell you: MacArthur Park is 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 that is what I was trying to get at. I suppose the whole thing was that I wrote the song at a time in the late 1960s when surrealistic lyrics were the order of the day. It was written around about the same time as Strawberry Fields, so it probably seems a bigger deal now than it was back then. Still, the lyrics never stopped Richard Harris, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer and any number of trash garage bands from doing it - and who else can say that about one of their songs"?

Ok, Jimmy, if you say so......
Updated On: 4/24/05 at 05:36 PM

[Jon]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 5:55pm

I'm sure that some of the same chemicals behind the lyrics to STRAWBERRY FIELDS were behind MACARTHUR PARK.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 6:05pm

MacArthur Park, as seen through the singers tears, looks like a cake melting in the rain. It's actually a pretty great line, especially when followed with "It took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again!" That's exactly what the end of a love affair feels like.

Well, it feels like that if you take a LOT of LSD....

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/24/05 at 6:13pm

“Hey, Dude, I am soooo fricking high…..”

”Me too, Dude…..shoooot.”

“I really got the munchies…run down to the corner and pick up some Pringles and M&M’s”

“Dude, it’s so fricking pouring out, and the 7-11’s all the way across the park…besides, I gotta finish this fricking song or my agents gonna drop me.”

“Got ANYTHING to eat?”

“There’s some cake in the kitchen, but it’s really bad, I lost the recipe and I’ll never get it back. Now shut the hell up and let me write this fricking song, man……”

And the rest, as they say, is History...