The Top 40 Cover Songs (36)

MacArthur Park(36) is a song written by American singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb that was recorded first by Irish actor and singer Richard Harris in 1968. Harris’s version peaked at number two on the Billboard chart and number four on the UK Singles Chart. In 1967, producer Bones Howe had asked Webb to create a pop song with different movements and changing time signatures. Webb delivered “MacArthur Park” to Howe with “everything he wanted”, but Howe did not care for the ambitious arrangement and unorthodox lyrics and the song was rejected by the group the Association, for whom it had been intended.

The inspiration for the song was his relationship and breakup with Susie Horton. MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, was where the couple would occasionally meet for lunch and spent their most enjoyable times together. When asked by interviewer Terry Gross what was going through his mind when he wrote the song’s lyrics, Webb replied that it was meant to be symbolic and referred to the end of a love affair. In an interview with Newsday in October 2014, Webb explained: “Everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park. … Back then, I was kind of like an emotional machine, like whatever was going on inside me would bubble out of the piano and onto paper.”

“A cover version of “MacArthur Park” was recorded by country music singer Waylon Jennings on his 1969 album Country Folk, which included the family group The Kimberlys. This version charted at number 23 on Hot Country Songs and number 93 on the Billboard, making its chart debut on August 23, 1969. It also won both acts the 1969 Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

In September 1978, American singer Donna Summer released a multi-million selling vinyl single disco version of “MacArthur Park”. The song reached number one on the Billboard in November 1978, for 3 weeks, and earned Summer her first nomination for the Grammy Award foor Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Summer was also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Female at the American Music Awards where her album Live and More took the award for Favorite Disco Album. She became the first female artist of the modern era to have the number one single and album simultaneously on the Billboard pop charts.

A cover version of “MacArthur Park” was recorded by Scottish progressive rock band Beggar’s Opera on their 1972 album Pathfinder. Their eight-minute version was panned by music critic Paul Stump who said that the band “over-eggs the already indigestible pudding” of the song.

And, just for fun Weird Al.

Posts created 1492

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.

Back To Top