"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
11 June 2007I think that I can take itJimmy Webb has given, maybe, the last interview on "MacArthur Park":
In mid-1965, I was absolutely besotted with my girlfriend at the time. 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. I also wrote "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" about her, but I never even got as far as Riverside. But I lost her. She married some other guy. We're still friends. Her name is Susan Ronstadt.
Any relation to Linda Ronstadt? A cousin, says Webb. And no, he wasn't trying to be florid and metaphorical:
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.
Count me as insufficiently venomous. I've always been fond of this song, over the top as it is; when Richard Harris died in 2002, I quipped that his voice sounded like W. H. Auden's face, "like a wedding-cake left in the rain." And yes, "Weird Al" Yankovic made fun of it: still, if you listen to "Jurassic Park," you'll hear that Yankovic went to considerable effort to replicate Webb's original arrangement, even the Hal Blaine drum fill in the last verse. You don't take that kind of care with something you don't respect. Besides, it's still better than "Seasons in the Sun." (Via Fark.) Posted at 10:15 AM to Tongue and GrooveCHARLES! NO WAY! Seasons in the Sun is a thousand times better. Posted by: Donna at 11:09 AM on 11 June 2007AND I'LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAAAAAAAAIN! OHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO! OOOOOOOOHHHOOOOHH NOOOOOOOOOOO! Posted by: Veronica at 12:20 PM on 11 June 2007I think Weird Al's take on 'Lola' ('Yoda') was a masterpiece of the highest order. So I'm in no position to look down on anyone who favors 'McArthur Park'. There's a place for the over-the-top, as well as the unbelievably bad ('Plan 9 from Outer Space'). Such extremes are, at least, inspired. It's the hopelessly banal, calculated, and pandering that I have no respect for. For example, 'Seasons in the Sun' is cloying or worse, and 'Walking on Sunshine', 'sucks noodles'. Posted by: Mister Snitch! at 1:15 PM on 11 June 2007 |