It's MacArthur Park time once again...

[Mr. Scorpio]

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. "MacArthur Park" is a great song. Why do people hate it so much? NT

[Tomconroy]

3. Everybody gets pissed off when they remember the time they

left a cake out in the rain.

[EYESORE 9001]

8. For me, it was the knowledge

that I’d never have that recipe again. Oh no!

[hlthe2b]

11. The lyrics were silly (supposedly composed on a bet by Jimmy Webb) but I always liked it

including both the Richard Harris version and Donna Summer's later "disco" version.

I am unabashedly a fan of the song--silly lyrics and all.

[Paladin]

2. I am embarrassed to this day by my youthful admiration of those lyrics. (nt)

[Goonch]

4. With the famous "cake out in the rain," this is one of the more lyrically intriguing songs

"...ever recorded. MacArthur Park is a real park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, but that's about the only tangible reference.

Jimmy Webb, who wrote the song, explained in Q magazine: "It's 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 I wrote the song at a time in the late 1960s when surrealistic lyrics were the order of the day."

The love affair Webb speaks of was with Suzy Horton, who in 1993 married Linda Ronstadt's cousin, Bobby. Said Webb (in the Los Angeles Times), "MacArthur Park was where we met for lunch and paddleboat rides and feeding the ducks. She worked across the street at a life insurance company. 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. But people have very strong reactions to the song. There's been a lot of intellectual venom."

[colsohlibgal]

5. Love This Song

Not sure either why some dislike this so much.

[Cracklin Charlie]

7. The singer has a nice voice.

[Hotler]

9. Maynard Ferguson Live at Jimmy's is a great version.

I tried to link it from youtube but it wouldn't let me for some reason. Check it out.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Pos def on that !

I can't believe Columbia took three decades to release that on CD.

[Xavier Breath]

12. Ilove the Richard Harris version

but do not care for the Donna Summer version, at all. Anyone else feel that way, or the opposite?