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MacArthur Park Lyrics
Artist: Richard Harris
Album: MacArthur Park
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
CHORUS
MacArthur's 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
CHORUS
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.
MacArthur's 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!! (upon which Harris suffers an irreversible gender change)
Related:
Richard Harris Lyrics
Richard Harris MacArthur Park Lyrics
Comments/Interpretations
One of the greatest and most beautiful songs, a true classic.
I think this 7 minute song is one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century. It is like a short symphony, with beautiful words, a harp concerto, a drum concerto and a piano that sounded like steel drums, all rolled up into a fast movement, a slow movement and a rousing crescendo. And to top off all this, the singer conveyed deep emotion while holding the notes and pronouncing all the words clearly. I’ve never heard a performance of this song as good as its original, sung by Richard Harris. If that is really him holding lower A at the end (as the sources claim), his vocal range is almost beyond belief.
MACARTHUR PARK (Richard Harris version) is the best tribute I know, at least in English, to the ineffable memory of Lost (usually the first) love. Well maybe TAXI is a close second.
"In love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants"
Now that's greatness.
this song is da shiznitt
This song is very touching and has a great message, cake can always melt so be very careful. Best Song ever*
MACARTHUR PARK (Richard Harris)
This has been my favorite song for
many years, I truly love the way we each see it differently.
i think the true lesson in the song is to always right down your good cake recipes.
One of our all time favorite songs, the demented rambling of a severly alcoholic has been.
Truly a great modern song. The music is just superb. That phrase "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." is a real puzzler.
This is a song most people will never forget. Did you know Richard Harris is the first Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Some will never understand the true meaning of this song.But others will embrace it for the rest of their lives.
"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 was ROFL when I first heard this. Hilarious.
I am moved when I hear this song......simply amazing!!!
MacArthur Park (Richard Harris vocals)filled with hidden inuendos and imagination. I would love to capture the endless images of cakes that people have created in their minds while listening - I love this song!
One of the best songs in the world
This has always been my favorite song
but for" the striped pair of pants", a most poignant, wistful set of lyrics; beautiful poetry and the music is incredible; only Richard Harris' untrained, voice ever did this song justice. he kept it pure, unaffected.
You'll still be the one! Uma viagem fantástica!
What a song I prefer Richard Harris's version to Donna Summers. Very emotional "I will take my life into my hand and I will use it " everone has their own interpretation of that.
This has to be the worst song ever recorded in the history of time. That chorus is simply awful. God help us all.
----- 1967-68 was the year for sweet, young Hippie girls with long clean hair that smelled of Patruli incense --- I was 20 --- I could live those years over a thousand times...
Okay, that last comment about the final high note is hilarious. That said, this song is pure sixties: makes little to no sense, is obviously the product of a drug episode, is beautiful but totally overblown, etc. That said, Harris nailed it in some great excessive burst of lyricism. A classic.
I think it's a beautiful, poetic song, and the chorus is cute.
This song is about lost love. If you ever lost a love then you know that you can never go back and re create what you lost, it will never be the same. He is reminiscing about the time when he had his moments of love. Mac Arthur park is in Los Angeles and people used to go there on the weekends and play backgamon and checkers. There boats to rent for the lake. There is nothing that hints of drugs. I was in 5th grade and knew exactly what this song is about. It is a very sad song to think about...
This song has haunted me since high school. I loved it; my boyfriend hated it. This is a song about a man who is reminiscing about the one true love of his life, lost and never to be found. Even with other loves, she will always be the one he longs for. He remembers a beautiful spring day with her at MacArthur Park. Using metaphor after metaphor, he compares the day falling into darkness, and a beautiful cake that is ruined in the rain to the loss of his love. No day can be repeated, and no other love can ever be the same.
this song defined my college experience. with all the music:
doors, beatles, cream,csny,iron
butterfly,deep purple et al,this
song filled and emptiness and I
knew that what I felt was true,
life is sad and yet beautiful. thank you jim webb and richard
harris for reaching out and touching my soul with your words and music
Superb! On of may favorites in the 60's! Great Jim Webb, outstanding Richard Harris!
My God, men, keep your wits about you. These parts are thick with trolls!
Most god awful song I've ever heard lol
Macarthur Park was a hangout in the late 60's for flower children and hippies (mostly on pot - some on worse stuff)That explains the cake metaphore. Think of the early Beattle's movies and all the strange flowy pictures that look drug induced.To me the writer has obviously tired of the scene and is ready to take charge of his life and move on, but he's not sure that he won't regret what he's leaving behind (her).
best song, music ever.....love hearing it over and over.
All i can say is that this song is 7.25 minutes of pure joy!
still stays one off the greatest songs ever!!!!!!
For me this is a very inspiring song... it tells about the memories that is hard to back again
for me, this is a very inspiring song.... i love the melody of this song... "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"---- for me it means the memories that will never back again.
Its an opra.
this song sucks
This song always makes me think of my first wife and how I loved her so intensely.
happy memories from the first time I heard it on my tinny tranny - stop trying to analyse the song and enjoy the unique presentation by Richard Harris and outstanding musical backing.
Often wondered why he didn't just write "Between the parted pages WE(instead of AND) were pressed by love's hot fevered iron like a striped pair of pants" Makes more sense surely. One of greatest popular songs ever penned in my opinion.
This is a special song sung by a special actor. Don't underestimate the deep clever words. They are something special, and will last forever. How I wish I had the tallent to record such an emotional song. Pure class.
Did you know it takes a man in a tweed suit seven minutes to get to the end of this amazing song - now then, not many people know that!!
my 28 year old son died....."I don't think that I can take it cause it took so long to bake it and I'll never have the recipe again........oh no".
Beautiful!!
I fell in love for the very first time in my life at the tender age of 62 years young. I can't have her (she's married) and lives in Ireland. I have never felt pain as great as this. "After all the loves in my life I'll be thinking of you and wondering why."
Even after all these years, when I hear this song I'm 24 years old again and in love and facing a world of endless possibilities. It still has the power to move me, despite the controversy about what the lyrics really mean.
I have grown to have a deep emotional attachment to this song over the years and to not only realize what a soulful heartfelt rendition that Richard Harris gives of it, but also what a poignant and wonderful tribute not only love but live itself Jimmy Webb has done here. I was only 12 when it came out, and truthfully thought it was truly bizarre at the time. But it creeps into your very soul if you listen to it over a few times a year for forty plus years and becomes a part of you.
As a young child and boy I would listen to this song on my parent's turntable. It seemed smooth and soothing at the time. Of course, nothing more. Now as a man in his late 40's, I just lost the love of my life, on so many levels - the intense loving and leaving and finding again almost ruined me - This song is amazing . Resonates !
"After all the loves of my life I'll be thinking of you and wondering why"...wow, how lovely. My heart melts everytime i heard this song.I will dedicate this song to my one & only,Jessica.
NOBODY Can sing this song the way that R:HARRIS sings it.
he managed tomaket he word WHY,not a question but a two silabel lament.absolutely wonderful.!!!!
One of the all time best songs!
"After all the loves of my life I'll be thinking of you and wondering why"...
What a song and how real is that sentence!!! That suits me perfectly.
Undoubtedly is a masterpiece
In 1968, I was 22 yrs old and madly in love with a young Marine who had just returned from Vietnam and was based in LosAngeles working as a recruiter on college campus's. I will never forget that time in my life or the intensity of my love for him - obviously, we eventually went our separate ways but " after all the lovs of my life.........." The song makes total sense. Anyone who can;t understand the words, has never loved like that.
HEard "McArthgur park" today for the umpteenth million time, and sudenly noticed how much the "allegro" part of it, with the syncopated tempo sounds so much like Mason Williams' "Classical Gas." Hasn't anyone else noticed this? (It took me 44 years!) I am trying to find out if Williams was involved in the orchestration of the song, to no avail. If you can confirm, write to me at emma1231@optonline.net. Thanx.
My cake was my wife and two sons that took four years to build but was lost when my wife suffered from post natal blues. We lost our way and looking for solace,I got involved in a relationship that caused the cake to melt.
What a lushful harmony coupled with an exquisite orchestration! Nothing similiar will be successful today
Possibly the worst song of all times.
The most ethereal and haunting song of all time. The first part is sung strangely, and should be:
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
But the part I love most of all is the ending:
My passions flow like rivers through the sky
And after all the loves of my life I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why
This is about my one, true love. The first ever, the most intense and eternal passion that will never come back again. I'll always be with you, always. I'm wondering why I was so stupid then, I'm older but no wiser. It was agony to leave you, and I still see you in that park in the snow, my eyes full of tears so that the whole scene seemed to melt
I never tire of this song. Each time I hear it, it's sounds as fresh and haunting as it did in 1968. This is one song that will easily stand the test of time.
As each year goes by and as I grow older, this amazing piece still never ceases to move me deeply. Each time I listen to it I understand more of what it is about and I appreciate more fully the unique combination of poetry, prose and music, carefully wrapped around deep emotion. It reminds me of the feelings I had in 1973 for a lovely young woman I loved deeply and who loved me too, but who, for various reasons, I could never marry. She will be in my heart until the day I die - and now 40 years after our parting I still hurt so much when I think of never seeing her again. It is a truly wonderful piece of music and my grateful thanks go to Jimmy Webb and Richard Harris for producing something so beautiful, so incredibly evocative and so thought provoking.
The reflections of past special monumental moment with someone treasured most is what that song contextually says to me. I've always enjoyed the arrangement. But God revealed to me using a portion of this song's [ the reference to someone left the cake out in the rain etc:] As a reference to our great nation of America and it's departure from God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But if our leaders and the people would seriously repent and turn back to God, it's existance could be prolonged for a little season. Think about it!Jesus Saves don't forsake our own mercy.