We were pressed in love's hot, fevered iron like a striped pair of pants

[rachelmanija]

It just occurred to me that some of you may have never experienced possibly the most amazing song in existence, MacArthur Park. I refreshed my memory of it yesterday. It's not a parody song - I think - but appears to be very serious. Which makes it much more hilarious. Go on, check it out. At least the first minute or so.

Here, have the Donna "17-minute orgasm" Summer cover. I think I left the cake out in the rain. OH NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Comments

[recessional]

*stares at the youtube comments* *STARES AT THEM*

Are you all on drugs.

Though aw, now I want to read Dave Barry's Bad Song Book again.

[twistedchick]

And, when you think of Richard Harris as the first version of Dumbledore, it becomes a bit more surreal...

[onyxlynx]

Her voice was always phenomenal.

At the moment, I'd rather listen to "MacArthur Park" than anything by The Clash.

[ironed_orchid]

It's not a parody? I always figured it had to be as nothing else made sense.

[dragovianknight]

The true glory of MacArthur Park is that Weird Al's parody makes MORE sense.

[lnhammer]

Bwah!

[lferion]

*Boggles*

It's like an extended Mondegreen - not even the Nottamun Town kind of nonsense. Wow.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's not a parody at all. Jimmy Webb wrote it after a romantic break-up, and was kind of taken aback by both the parodic treatments and the venom it inspired. I don't remember how Richard Harris got involved - though I think he fancied becoming a major singing star after Camelot - but there's a live version out there on the interwebs somewhere with Harris in a beard and a froofy white shirt, in front of a whole orchestra, and I totally recommend hunting it down.

It is also worthy of note that W H Auden - who was a beautiful young man, and an extraordinarily craggy old one - said "My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain."

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

WOW. I will look for that.

It's amazing how different the cake in the rain line sounds when it's printed words with reasonable context vs sung with a bombastic orchestra accompaniment.

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha. No, I'd never heard that song (or the other one, for that matter).

...It's the striped pants metaphor that gets me the most, I think...

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I like the Shakespearean "stri-ped."

[melebeth]

Thank you. Now I'm SINGING THAT IN MY HEAD. *shoots you a glance of pure loathing*

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, listen, the time for that song was when it came out, one was very young, and *ahem* had partaken of serious amounts of herbally enriched brownies. Then it was the most wonderful song in the world. I still recollect the images I got of rivers through the sky, while under the influence.

ETA: Oh yes, and seriously discussing the profound significance of the line "I will win the worship in your eyes, and I will lose it."

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, that is clearly the best way to listen to that song. I wonder if brownies were also involved in the writing. Maybe that's why the icing is green!

[gwynnega]

My friend Stew's band covered the song in the '90s and changed the line to "someone left the crack out in the rain."

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

OH NOOOOOOOOO!

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

mr. flea and I once carried a wedding cake from the neighbor's garage (which had an empty fridge) to my mother and her brand-new husband's house in the POURING rain. I held the umbrella; he carried the cake. You can guess what we sang at the tops of our lungs.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Golly. I remember that thing. A diabetic coma on a disk!

Nine

[eos-joy.livejournal.com]

I think it's my father's favorite disco song. It was instrumental to my learning to hustle. *lol* Goodness knows I was very young when this first happened - I was so confused about its lyrics and their meaning and I was an artistic and smart kid >.< - and I actually didn't know there was any version other than Donna Summers' until the other night when I saw/heard it performed on tv! *lol*

Ah. Good times.

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

I sorta' remember the Donna Summers version. As a kid I was completely confused as to why she couldn't get the cake recipe again - I tried imagining the scenarios to explain it: the dog ate the recipe card and the person who have it to her was tragically killed in a car crash, etc. I think I spent much more time than the song warranted on such musings.

[axolotl9.livejournal.com]

My mother has the full album on which the song appears, so I have been familiar with it from a very early age.
This is the most overdramatic song on the record, but they're all kind of like that.