MacArthur Park

Glen Campbell

Maynard Ferguson:

Jimmy Webb:

Aretha:

Dionne Warwick:

Diana Ross & the Supremes:

Frank Sinatra:

Liza:

Carrie Underwood:

Henricus Wallace Westlake.

By the way, is MacArthur Park still as dangerous as it used to be, or is Westlake gentrifying? It's such a great location, gentrification seems inevitable.

Richard Harris.

Classically trained British actors can recite the phonebook and make it sound like it's about something and that's what he did with MacArthur Park.

And his recording sounds like 1968, when songs with lyrics that conjure up mystical imagery were in vogue. And the orchestration and backup singers also sound like the era.

The 17:53 minute Extended Version.

How popular was this in the clubs in 1978?

I just listened to the Sinatra version. He voice was shot by then but damn he knew how to get to the heart of things. It's moving.

Richard Harris' version is without a doubt the best version. The entire album that it was on -- A Tramp Shining -- was written by Webb, and is a masterpiece.

Richard Harris:

All the votes for Richard Harris has restored my faith in the DL

But Dionne's is simply perfect.

There is a chapter on the song in the book "The Wrecking Crew" :

[quote] “As the recording progressed over several days, it all built toward a critical mass, to the one piece that had caught Harris’s attention back in London. Called “MacArthur Park” (written as the final movement of The Cantata), it also put the Wrecking Crew’s skills to the test like no song before it. A spectacular production with innumerable complex chords and polyrhythms, it was the furthest thing possible from a normal rock-and-roll date. And they simply loved it.” ... It was the musical challenge of a professional lifetime; for once, the Wrecking Crew were able to stretch and really strut their stuff.”

At over 7 minutes, DJs refused to play the song. Webb would not allow edits. Eventually, it was one of the first songs over 3 minutes to receive airplay. It was a surprise when the song went to No 2 in America and No 4 in the UK.

All that fuss over an ugly-ass cake?

Four Tops' excellent version:

[quote] And the orchestration and backup singers also sound like the era.

Definitely, check out the "Selected recordings" section here:

Donna rocks!!!

Oh, for F's sake, OP / Donna Summer Fangurl.

NO ONE agreed with you until Post # 22. And there's a reason . . .

Although it's not specifically mentioned here, MacArthur Park (the original Harris version) was of the baroque pop genre.

I see the Wrecking Crew that year also did "Classical Gas" another baroque pop piece.

The 17 minute Donna wins. Epic.

What is the appeal of this song? I just don't get it. The lyrics are bizarre. What's up with the goddamned cake? Was it an ice cream cake?

@ R3 - you can see why Jimmy Webb never made it as a singer. God, he was awful.

^^^ Substitute a word like "marriage" or "relationship" for "cake," dear. Perhaps that'll clear things up for you.

I didn't know there was a book about The Wrecking Crew. Thanks for the heads up, R18. I just downloaded it.

Richard Harris for the win, but Liza gives the song some much needed show-biz pizzazz.

It sounds like any minute she's about to change tempo and breakout with a top hat and cane.

I love those crazy lyrics. 💋

MacArthur Park is now skid row.

[quote] I didn't know there was a book about The Wrecking Crew.

The book was a brief, easy read with some new information, although there is a movie that is supposedly better. Their story is pretty incredible and I'm glad these musicians are finally getting some public recognition.

Youngsters, there is NO MacArthur Park other than CARMEN'S

The beginning of Jimmy Webb’s original reminds me of the Halloween theme

Although the majority of the song's lyrics are atmospheric and metaphorical, one of the verses in the bridge is straightforward and incredibly heartbreaking. It makes me think of my ex. We have been broken up for 30 years have remained friends, but he is the one I think about...

"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 flows like rivers through the sky. But after all the loves of my life...oh, after all the loves in my life .. I'll be thinking of you, and wondering why.'

[quote]"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 flows like rivers through the sky. But after all the loves of my life...oh, after all the loves in my life .. I'll be thinking of you, and wondering why.'

Gorgeous.

Manila Luzon performed the definitive version.

I was nuts about the baroque rock songs when I was a teenager in the early 80s. I desperately wanted a K-Tel compilation album, which I wanted to call Ba-Rock! Here's another cut.

R39 One of the very best.

Here's an obscure one I love, "Pretty Ballerina" from the guys who did "Walk Away Renee"

Not to hijack this thread, but here's another song for the K-Tel Ba-Rock! Collection.

God, I hated that song. For some reason everyone covered it. It seemed to be seeking a level of intellectual whatever that was unusual for a pop song, but it really just seemed to be a jumble of ideas and metaphors. Oddly, it makes more sense when Jimmy Webb, the weakest singer of the bunch, does it--his non-singing is the perfect vehicle for sophomoric pretense like this.

A little trivia: Jimmy Webb wrote this song about the same woman -- Linda Ronstadt's cousin -- as MacArthur Park. She married shortly after they broke up.

And who did leave the cake out in rain?

Wunderbar performance and a flawless vocal. That's what Donna delivered on American Idol.

[quote]God, I hated that song. For some reason everyone covered it. It seemed to be seeking a level of intellectual whatever that was unusual for a pop song

It was the psychedelic '60s....and pop lyrics began to have a mystical metaphysical twist.

1968 had Richard Harris with "MacArthur Park" and Noel Harrison (Rex's son) with "Windmills of My Mind".

"And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!"

*"of Your Mind"

The Worst that Could Happen at least was coherent. The Fifth Dimension did a really good version that also charted.

"Noel Harrison (Rex's son) with "Windmills of My Mind"."

Windmills of YOUR Mind was written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman for the 1968 film, The Thomas Crown Affair. It was covered by Noel Harrison, the song was not "his."

Jimmy Webb came from a Baptist background and according to wiki has returned to it. He's the guy that Sally Field she woke up and found screwing her.

When I was a kid in the 60s, my father had a restaurant with a jukebox, and when the record guy would come to switch out the records, I would get to keep the old ones. So I had lots of singles, including the Richard Harris one. I was baffled by it, but I played the hell out of it.

I forgot Donna covered it!

OP's video of Donna Summer is astonishing. What a voice!

"Noel Harrison (Rex's son) with "Windmills of My Mind"." Windmills of YOUR Mind was written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman for the 1968 film, The Thomas Crown Affair. It was covered by Noel Harrison, the song was not "his.""

Bub, are you able to read?

First of all I corrected my typo.

Second: I did not use the word "his".

1968...Noel Harrison (Rex's son) with Windmills of Your Mind.

"With". Got it?

I love Donna, but her version is definitely not the definitive one. That song belongs to Richard Harris, who (even though he can't sing) hits all the right emotional notes.

As for "Windmills Of Your Mind", the absolute best version was Dusty Springfield.

Disco, country, soul, jazz, R&B, pop, and rock.

One of those rare songs with superb versions across many genres.

R48 -- The lyrics to a lot of Webb's songs were more atmospheric than linear or coherent. Wichita Lineman. Galveston. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But some were very linear, such as By the Time I Get to Phoenix, and, my absolute favorite, Adios. MacArthur Park is his masterpiece.

"Favorite version?" None of them. That was a truly awful song. But go figure, it became this huge hit. A prime example of an awful song that became a huge success.

R51 "forgot" that Summer had even covered MAP.

Maybe that's because her version was so - oh, I dunno - forgettable?

The bridge of the song is very beautiful, but I can't take the Richard Harris version at all. It's best as a dance song. The lyrics are too over the top to be anything else.

Oh well, everything has to be dumbed down today.

In my opinion, no one can touch Levi Stubbs (The Four Tops), his voice always gives me instant chills. Talk about talent!

I really don't like the song, but "I recall the yellow cotton dress, foaming like a wave on the ground beneath your knees" is a great line.

I was born after the Richard Harris version, but my family had Donna's Live & More double LP, and the "Macarthur Park Suite" took up an entire side. To me it was like a glorious, dramatic, mysterious sound-universe that my preteen self never wanted to leave.

Of course the lyrics are a little silly and pretentious, but that's part of the fun.

I like the version used in “Pricilla Queen of the Desert” on Broadway

I'm with R57. A stupid song.

I'm a fan of the song...love it... but it is kitsch. It's awful and fabulous at the same time. I think either you get it or you don't.

I need to know what exactly what kind of cake was left outside, in the rain no less, before I make a judgement.

It was a green cake, with all the sweet green icing flowing down. Pistachio.

Hands down, Richard Harris. I was obsessed with the song when it came out and thought it was "poetry." Then I grew up and in middle-age visited MacArthur Park and just cracked up laughing at what a totally unlovely place it is. Now if my husband wants to make me laugh, he starts singing it in fake English accent.

Richard Harris was in the movie version of "Camelot." Other than that and this album, did he ever do anything else musical?

Yes, he sang on the soundtrack album for "Mack the Knife" (1989), a film adaptation of "The Threepenny Opera". He appeared on Broadway in a revival of "Camelot", and sang occasionally on TV specials.

Donna's 1978 Live version:

The good thing about Donna Summer's version is that she basically ignores the phrasing and basically uses the lyrics to fill time.

Interesting that all of the covers (except Sinatra and the Idol performance) were before Donna's version.

Just some additional evidence that Donna's version was perfection.

Donna Summer, the most underrated voice in pop music.

She turns it into a Donna Summer disco number and it's great, but still: no one tops Richard Harris' original version IMHO.

But Donna Summer's is a solid second.

Is there any other song where the original singer gets the title wrong when it appears in the lyric?

I mean, why didn't anyone during the recording session tell Harris he was getting the name of the park wrong. "Richard, it is not a possessive or plural. It is MACARTHUR--singular. Can you speaksing that, luv?"

Donna Summer's version was my first exposure to the song. All other version's pale in compassion.

Donna's rendition is one of my Top 10 favorite songs of all time.

[quote]I need to know what exactly what kind of cake was left outside, in the rain no less, before I make a judgement.

It was a cake of shit. A huge, brown, odiferous cake of shit. Much like the stupid song itself.

Webb offered the song to The Association, but they rejected it. I'm with r54 about Dusty Springfield's version of "Windmills of Your Mind." She turns that song into quite a psychodrama.

It's a shame Dusty didn't cut it around the same time as Richard Harris. It would have suited her and we'd have a well sung version with an orchestration similar to the original.

They all suck because this song sucks.

[quote] I mean, why didn't anyone during the recording session tell Harris he was getting the name of the park wrong. "Richard, it is not a possessive or plural. It is MACARTHUR--singular

This was mentioned in the Wrecking Crew book.

[quote] After Harris added his dramatic vocal reading, where through either stubbornness or too much alcohol—with a pint next to him at all times—he incorrectly kept singing the lyrics as “MacArthur’s Park,” the recording was almost complete.

Love OP's video.

Worst Song in Every Way Ever---no matter who recorded it.

Donna's hit version leaves parts out, that makes it inferior.

The Association was the intended artist and they said it was awful. This from a group who recorded Windy about a girl with flatulence.

It would have suited Dusty Springfield.