MacArthur Park (song)
| "MacArthur Park" | ||||
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| Single by Richard Harris | ||||
| from the album A Tramp Shining | ||||
| B-side | Didn't We? | |||
| Released | April 1968 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | December 21, 1967-January 6, 1968 | |||
| Genre | Baroque pop, orchestral pop | |||
| Length | 7:21 | |||
| Label | Dunhill Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Jimmy Webb | |||
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Webb | |||
| Richard Harris singles chronology | ||||
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| "MacArthur Park" | ||||
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| Single by Donna Summer | ||||
| from the album Live and More | ||||
| B-side | "Once Upon a Time" (Live) (U.S.) "Last Dance" (Live) (France) "MacArthur Park" (Part 2) (Japan) "One of a Kind" (12") "Heaven Knows (12") "MacArthur Park Suite" (12") |
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| Released | September 24, 1978 | |||
| Format | ||||
| Recorded | 1978 | |||
| Genre | Disco | |||
| Length | 8:27 (album version) 3:59 (single version) |
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| Label | Casablanca | |||
| Writer(s) | Jimmy Webb | |||
| Producer(s) | ||||
| Donna Summer singles chronology | ||||
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| "MacArthur Park" | ||||
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| Single by Waylon Jennings | ||||
| from the album Country-Folk (with The Kimberlys) | ||||
| B-side | "But You Know I Love You" | |||
| Released | July 22, 1969 | |||
| Format | Country | |||
| Recorded | April 8, 1969 | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length |
5:11 6:02 (extended album version) |
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| Label | RCA | |||
| Writer(s) | Jimmy Webb | |||
| Producer(s) | Chet Atkins and Danny Davis | |||
| Waylon Jennings singles chronology | ||||
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"MacArthur Park" is a song written and composed by Jimmy Webb. Richard Harris was the first to record the song in 1968: his version peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number four on the UK Singles Chart. "MacArthur Park" was subsequently covered by numerous artists, including a hit version in 1969 by country music singer Waylon Jennings. Among the best-known covers is Donna Summer's disco arrangement from 1978 which topped the Billboard Hot 100.
"MacArthur Park" has been called the worst song ever written. Its flowery lyrics and metaphors (notoriously likening lost love to a cake left out in the rain) have been described as "bloated" and "loopy." Webb commented: "Those lyrics were all very real to me: there was nothing psychedelic about it to me. The cake, it was an available object. It was what I saw in the park at the birthday parties."
"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, 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.
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Wikipedia