“MacArthur Park” – Single by Richard Harris from the album A Tramp Shining
B-side “Didn’t We?”
Released April 1968
Recorded December 21, 1967
Studio Sound Recorders, Hollywood
Label Dunhill
Songwriter Jimmy Webb
Producer Jimmy Webb
Charted No.2 in US, No.4 in UK, No.1 in Canada, No.9 in Ireland
With the famous “cake out in the rain,” this is one of the more lyrically intriguing songs ever recorded. MacArthur Park is a real park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, but that’s about the only tangible reference.
“MacArthur Park” was written and composed by Jimmy Webb in the summer and fall of 1967 as part of a cantata. Webb brought the entire cantata to the Association, but the group rejected it. 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.
This was recorded at the short-lived Sound Recorders studio in Los Angeles on December 21, 1967, with the top-tier Los Angeles session musicians that later became known as “The Wrecking Crew.” The contract lists these personnel:
Tommy Tedesco – guitar
Mike Deasy – guitar
Al Casey – guitar
Joe Osborn – bass
Larry Knechtel – keyboards
Hal Blaine – drums
Webb is listed as the arranger and also as a musician because he played harpsichord on the track. He says that once they rehearsed the song a few times, they recorded it in one take.
Overdubs of the orchestral instruments were done at two more sessions, also overseen by Webb, on December 29 and 30. The vocals were added later.
Richard Harris sang the title as “MacArthur’s Park,” and since he was the first to record it, that’s how most others (including Donna Summer), sang it. When the song’s writer, Jimmy Webb, recorded it for his 1996 album Ten Easy Pieces, he sang it as “MacArthur Park.”
Richard Harris who died at 72 on October 25, 2002, played Professor Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies and appeared in the films This Sporting Life, Unforgiven, and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway.
