MacArthur Park

Gitmo for the Ears

This song is so moving, it has funny lyrics, yes, but if a person does some research, this "story" actually is quite moving. The way the music flows with its highs and lows, is so moving to me - PLUS Donna sings it with such stirring and powerful emotion that pulls me into it so much, almost as much as Richard Harris did with the original, which I of course, love.

This song, whether or not intended to be a hit, became one because of its phenomenal theatrical structure, melody and unforgettable/memorable lyrics. And the song makes perfect sense if you know what it is to have loved and lost like Jimmy Webb (and Richard Harris) did. "Awful instrumentation"?? You must be out of your mind. This song is and will always be a 20-century classic!!!

As for the metaphor "The cake is melting..... & the icing ...." could possibly be Webb's taking a phrase from one of the poems by English poet, W.H.Auden which included: "My face looks like a cake left out in the rain."

Even if you hate the lyrics, you have to admit that this song has an amazing opening melody!

-(from various YouTube comments)

Jimmy Webb - MacArthur Park - Live in London 1999






Jimmy Webb remembers Richard Harris

A Music Moment: Crosby, Swings and Stars

Swinging on a Star was recorded in 1944 by Bing Crosby for the movie Going My Way. The story of the song's origin supposedly goes like this: song writer Jimmy Van Heusen was at Bing's house for dinner one night to discuss songs for the upcoming motion picture.

During the meal, one of the children began complaining about how he didn’t want to go to school the next day. The singer turned to his son and said to him, “If you don’t go to school, you might grow up to be a mule. Do you wanna do that?” Van Heusen thought that this clever rebuke would make a good song for the movie. He pictured Bing, playing a priest, talking to a group of children acting much the same way that his own child acted that night. When he took his idea to his partner, Johnny Burke, Johnny was quick to approve, and they wrote the song.

Child singer Lena Zavaroni sings Swinging On A Star on Junior Showtime, a British variety show for children that aired between 1969 and 1974.




Here is a short interview with Zavaroni from 1989 (she died in 1999, age 35):


Here she appears on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at age ten singing End of the World:


Website dedicated to Lena's memory