I think I read somebody somewhere saying that the lyrics to “MacArthur Park” sounds like someone on an LSD trip, and if you read the entire lyrics, it checks out.
How dare they. TWOTED is a great nautical ballad, and I will mildly insult anybody who disagrees with me (and I have! Don’t think I won’t!).
(bolding mine)
There is a common misconception that exact rhymes are superior to ‘almost’ rhymes. They are not. There are millions and millions of examples to the contrary. In fact, exact rhyming can be seen as the mark of an amateur.
There are many lyric writing courses and how to write songs videos that explain this. Here is one example.
Good: the opening lines of Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce:
Babs and Clean Willie were in love, they said
So in love, the preacher’s face turned red
To me, anyway, that’s like a whole scene in two lines. I see the kind of people evoked by those names—Babs maybe a preppy upper class woman, Clean Willie a sleazy disreputable man. And they are with a preacher, so presumably getting married. And when the preacher says ‘you may kiss the bride,’ they proceed to go at it so enthusiastically that the preacher gets embarrassed.
For my bad, I’ll go to the glorious opening of Ammonia Avenue, by the Alan Parsons Project:
Is there no sign of light
As we stand in the darkness
Watching the sun arise?
That’s a tough question! (Actually, it’s a lovely song, though I don’t have any idea what it’s about!)
Nor I, but when it sounds like that I don’t care.
Gilbert Gottfried had “MacArthur Park” author Jimmy Webb on his podcast a couple years ago. During the interview we learned that the cake is not a metaphor. Nope. Jimmy and his girl used to picnic in the park and one of them actually left a cake out in a squall. We were then subjected to Gil’s singing said song. It’s a great episode. Try giving it a listen.