I just overheard someone praising MacArthur Park, claiming it is “One of, if not THE BEST song ever written”.
Well, the Harris version reached the number two spot in America and Donna Summer’s version stayed at number one for 3 weeks. So there’s that. But it does have its detractors, often topping lists of the “worst songs ever”.
So, for you, is this song great or awful?
Me, personally, I like the music but the lyrics, I just can’t get past them. So overall, I have to say, nay.
I kinda like it? I find it funny. Plus, I always want to say “It’s Westlake Park!” Doesn’t have the same resonance.
I did really like it when Alyssa Liu used Donna Summer’s version for her long program last season.
If you ignore one line about a wet cake the lyrics are good. And as disco diva music goes, the music is great. Judged by that era.
Helps a lot if you were the age and place to be dancing to it a lot while Summer was the Taylor Swift of her era. I’m sure that song narrated at least one college sexytime for me. Big smile.
As to the wet cake line itself, tortured metaphors are a staple of both poetry and pop lyrics. This one just landed extra badly.
Almost needless to say, but I vote Yaay! If it comes on it gets turned up, not off.
ETA: there is only one version. By Summers herself. All else is heresy.
The correct word is “pretentious.”
Personally, I find it ambitious and successful musically, trite while being overwritten lyrically, and bombastic and artsy - yet somehow appropriate - vocally. I enjoy it most when I treat Richard Harris’ vocal treatment as an annoying youngster trying to shout over the music. Donna Summer’s vocal is better, but I’m lukewarm about the disco arrangement. Waylon Jenning’s country version is a misfire.
And yes, I keep it on my master playlist.
Let’s discuss “love’s hot fevered iron.” 
Actually, I think it’s a great song, and a fascinating artifact of… well, something. I always pay attention to song lyrics, and there are lots of popular songs out there that are incredibly trite and lame. We’re just used to such pap. Lines like “holding back the night.” What is that even supposed to mean?
The bombastic arrangement is what makes the Harris version so great. How many 60s songs went full cantata?
Jimmy Webb maintains that everything, even the cake left out in the rain, was stuff he saw. It’s a pretty sad image all by itself.
You might also want to consider that it was beaten out for #1 by Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s in Love with You.” Compared to that song - probably truly the worst #1 of the 60s - “MacArthur Park” is practically Dylan.
While pondering metaphors, here’s one. The best thing to compare 60s’ hits to is a time capsule buried in some cornerstone, full of period junk and awesome timeless treasures, and it may be hard to tell which is which without knowing some context.
It’s all worth it for this gem:
I moved this from In My Humble Opinion to Cafe Society as that is the best fit for a thread about a song.
Moderating:
As a poster, it has been a joke song most of my life.
Even this?
"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"
Or this:
“The birds, like tender babies in your hands”
A little tortured for my taste. I will say, however, that I think Jimmy Webb, in general, is a brilliant songwriter.
Funny that you should mention Dylan. He maintains that another Jimmy Webb song, Witchita Lineman, is the greatest song ever written. It too was inspired by something that Webb had seen in real life.
His book Tunesmith is fascinating reading. I bought it for a friend that was a song writer and, after a quick look at it, ended up reading it before I gave it to him.
It was one of the few bright spots of the recent Beetlejuice sequel, which otherwise didn’t measure up to the original. That’s enough for me to rank it on the good to great part of my measurement scale.
I somehow managed to not notice the existence of this song until it was used in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I think it is really terrible. (I was familiar with the Weird Al “Jurassic Park” song; I thought it was an original of his, and really terrible.)
Maynard Ferguson played a trumpet version of it – well, a medley with other melodies – done most excellently, skillfully and passionately. He got high notes out of that horn that very few others could get. I love the music, the cringe-y lyrics not so much.
And pronouncing “striped” as “stri-ped”. Is that a Brit thing or did he just do that?
Must grant Jimmy: NOBODY EVER wrote those last two lines as verse before. You see “parted pages”, “pressed”, and you normally think of a figure of speech evoking dried flowers or something like that. Not ironing a pair of striped pants. That comes out of nowhere and is not a trope of any sort.
So it creates a “wait, what?” moment if anyone is actually paying attention. It comes across as one of those cases where the provisional filler line or title put in to hold the meter is left in the final release because you could not come up with anything better.
At least it’s relatively early in the piece so your focus moves on. And it benefits from that most people will just be predisposed to say “ah yes, those were good drugs we had then” and give it a pass on that account.
I’m the same. I didn’t like the song at first, but hearing Weird Al’s Jurassic Park made me realize that it actually has a pretty good tune.
It’s six lines, which are repeated three times, more than half of the song. And it’s terrible.
Terrible song. End of story.
To steal from Roger Ebert it is a A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length.
You are correct.