MacArthur Park - True Meaning?

[Adge]

Whilst watching the televisual spectacular that is "X-Factor" Rowetta from the Mondays sang "MacArthur Park" and afterwards claimed she found out what it was actually about but couldn't say on a family TV show. I've looked on the web and can't find anything out. Can anyone help?

Written By: Jimmy Webb
Sung By: Richard Harris or Donna Summer, equally silly.

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 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 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!

[break]

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
After all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why

[break]

MacArthur 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, no
Oh no!!

[HenryKrinkle]

It's about a wet cake isn't it?

...what the hell are you watching that drivel for...get yourself down the pub!! :lol:

[GoblinUK]

Well, i think I heard what she said, but not entirely sure I can say it. I think 'sex wee' is the current favourite terminology for it.

[S1515]

Its about drugs, why that is too "shocking for tv at any time" I dont know... :shrug:

[S1515]

Well, i think I heard what she said, but not entirely sure I can say it. I think 'sex wee' is the current favourite terminology for it.

:lol:

[Arch Stanton]

It's from the musical Camelot so what the DVD of that and see where it fits in the story.

I'm pretty sure it's nothing to do with sex because i remember watching it on telly when i was a kid.

[James45]

And The Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar was in the charts, that doesn't mean it is actually about something more controversial.

[wong fei hong]

It's from the musical Camelot so what the DVD of that and see where it fits in the story.

It's not - it's a Jimmy Webb (Wichita Lineman, Galveston) song written years after Camelot. I think the Richard Harris thing is confusing you. Webb has spoken fairly often about the song, which is basically a collection of sad and melancholy imagery. It's all to do with the end of youth, understanding middle age, living with your actions. It's pure poetry, and for my money one of the finest songs ever written.

Long instrumental in the middle makes karaoke improv essential, though.

[hnimmo]

It's not - it's a Jimmy Webb (Wichita Lineman, Galveston) song written years after Camelot.I believe the song first appeared on the album 'A Tramp Shining' by Richard Harris which was released in 1968. However, it was almost certainly written earlier by Jimmy as I believe it was offered to the american group The Association who turned it down. I think Camelot was released in 1967.

If you have not already heard it, I highly recommend the album Reunited ( with Jimmy Webb ) by Glen Campbell. A 24 track album with twenty three songs by Jimmy Webb and one by Lowell George ( Little Feat.)

[hnimmo]

This is what Jimmy Webb has said about the song. Notes derived from an interview by Glenn A. Baker in the Oyster Bar of the Plaza Hotel, New York, in 1983.

'There is a very interesting fellow names Bones Howe, who is somewhat of a brilliant engineer and producer who did quite a lot of work with us in 1967 on two Fifth Dimension albums, Up, Up and Away and Magic Garden. He was producing a group called The Association; they were very successful, riding the crest of a a wave. He and I had some theoretical discussions about expanding the pop form, breaking out of the constrictions of a three minute song - verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, verse, chorus - and creating a longer piece, with classical influences. From what I'd seen of the business there was a tendency for songwriters, once they had become successful to drift along in the formula that established them until they died. I decided that I wanted to keep writing and that I wanted to evolve and break out of the formula. Anyway, it was just something Bones and I were talking about. I think it was after we finished the Magic Garden album. He was in working with The Association and said would I do this piece that I was talking about for them. It really was quite a challenge but the air was full of ideas in those amazingly vital days of the late sixties. There was a lot of experimentation, with Brian Wilson having done Pet Sounds, then The Beatles with Sgt. Pepper. So I said yes, it would be great, something different and I wrote MacArthur Park. The abstract quality of the words was a direct result of the kind of amorphous, poetic lyrics of the late sixties, it's not intentionally meant to confuse anyone, it's just a poetic impression.

So I did this thing and I went down to play it to The Association in the studio one night. I felt more or less that it was a fait accompli, that they were going to do it, but when I got there I found that they didn't particularly care for it. After they turned it down, Bones Howe sent a telegram telling them that the day MacArthur Park went top ten they officially had his resignation as their producer.'

[wong fei hong]

I think Camelot was released in 1967.
That's when the film was released, but as a Broadway musical I think it dates from before 1960.

[hnimmo]

That's when the film was released, but as a Broadway musical I think it dates from before 1960.Apologies for the misunderstanding. In his reply, Arch Stanton mentions the dvd ( i.e. the film ) and I thought that was what you were referring to.

[richpoyle]

It's about the end of a relationship.

[StuBruise]

Rowetta said on Friday night's Xtra Factor that she'd been told it was about semen...

~~stu

[Barney_Tabasco]

It's not - it's a Jimmy Webb (Wichita Lineman, Galveston) song written years after Camelot. I think the Richard Harris thing is confusing you. Webb has spoken fairly often about the song, which is basically a collection of sad and melancholy imagery. It's all to do with the end of youth, understanding middle age, living with your actions. It's pure poetry, and for my money one of the finest songs ever written.

Long instrumental in the middle makes karaoke improv essential, though.

Completely agree - classic song. One of the best ever written.

[neverland]

Rowetta said on Friday night's Xtra Factor that she'd been told it was about semen...

I'm not convinced. Fair enough about never having that recipe again, but "it took so long to bake it"? Surely it only takes a couple of minutes of vigourous wrist exercises to produce more, er, rainy cake. :?: