Jimmy Webb explains why someone left the cake out in the rain in 'MacArthur Park'

As the classic resurfaces in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," the hit songwriter will perform in Minneapolis.

By Jon Bream Star Tribune

September 26, 2024 — 8:00am

"MacArthur Park" — that oft-derided 1960s song about someone leaving the cake out in the rain — is having another life. Once again.

It's featured in the popular new film "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." The tune is actually used twice by director Tim Burton: The 1968 Richard Harris orchestral rock version is heard during a wedding scene and the 1978 Donna Summer dance club treatment is played over the credits.

Jimmy Webb — the Hall of Fame songwriter who literally bought the cake so forget about his lyric about the recipe — is, of course, thrilled about the song's reappearance even though he hasn't seen the movie yet.

"God bless Tim Burton," said Webb, who returns to Minneapolis on Sunday at the Parkway Theater for an evening of songs and stories. "'MacArthur Park' has staying power. That would be an understatement. I'm happy, because I own it."

The Grammy-winning Webb penned the epic 7-minute, 21-second love song about his on-and-off-again relationship with high school sweetheart Susie Horton. She was the cheerleader captain and homecoming queen; he was the bespectacled "nerd of all nerds," but they bonded in their high school musical in Los Angeles.

"None of this would have happened without her. She was the muse. It was a complicated relationship that lasted many, many years and produced a lot of songs," said Webb, adding that she's now married to Linda Ronstadt's cousin.

Horton worked at an L.A. insurance company across from MacArthur Park, where they'd meet for picnic lunches.

"MacArthur Park in those days," Webb said, "had a little more romantic tinge to it than it does today. Little paddleboats, there were ducks and the birds were tame. They would eat out of her hand."

Where did the lyric "someone left the cake out in the rain" come from?

"It was about the relationship melting in the rain," the songwriter said, referring to the line about losing something because someone is not taking care of things. "It was also something I'd read once that W.H. Auden wrote: 'When I look in the mirror, my face looks like a cake melting in the rain.' It wasn't something I just pulled out of my keister. It was all very real to me." [Note: Auden actually said, "My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain."]

It became one of those ridiculed lyrics in pop music like "not even the chair" in Neil Diamond's "I Am … I Said" or "16 vestal virgins who were leaving for the coast" in Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale."

"Some of the reaction to it was hurtful. They thought it was pompous or pretentious," Webb said with a tinge of bitterness.

He recalled a scathing review in Newsweek that made it sound like "MacArthur Park" was the "Elephant Man" of pop songs.

"People were laughing at 'MacArthur Park.' To me it was anything but funny. It was a tragedy. 'MacArthur Park' was different. It was like lieder song in a way. It had classical elements that were undeniable, and it had a British Shakespearean actor singing but sometimes just acting out the words."

However you analyze it, "MacArthur Park" has had multiple lives.

The suite-like piece was written for the Association of "Windy" and "Cherish" fame, commissioned by the group's producer, Bones Howe, but they passed on it.

Webb revisited it while producing an album for Irish actor Richard Harris in London. "He'd always go in [the recording studio] with a pitcher of Pimm's or a bottle of Courvoisier," the producer recalled, "and we'd record until we ran out of fuel."

Harris' song became a favorite on FM radio in '68 and, despite its length in a world of 3-minute pop songs, crossed over to Top 40 radio, landing at No. 2 in the United States and No. 1 in the United Kingdom.

Ten years later, Summer did her disco-y version ("a fabulous vocal performance," says Webb), and it became his only No. 1 song in the States.

"MacArthur Park" has experienced its humorous moments, as well, in the 1982 movie "Airplane II: The Sequel" and on "Saturday Night Live" when the character Father Guido Sarducci is swept offstage in a wave of green icing in the early '80s. "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1993 parody, titled "Jurassic Park," featured Tyrannosaurus rex devouring Barney.

Waylon Jennings recorded a country version in 1969 that led to his first Grammy. David Letterman featured it on his last week of "The Late Show" in 2014, elaborately presented with a full orchestra and singer Will Lee climbing a ladder to help him reach his high note.

"There have been a lot of funny moments," Webb said. "I've always lent myself to that."

Wanted to be a rock star

Growing up in Oklahoma, piano-playing Webb targeted Glen Campbell as the voice he wanted to write for after hearing, at age 14, Campbell's "Turn Around, Look at Me." Webb's wish came to fruition in 1967 when his "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was pitched by Johnny Rivers to Campbell.

Webb and Campbell met at the Grammys in 1968 when the songwriter, then 21, got all dressed up to collect a trophy for song of the year for "Up, Up and Away" by the 5th Dimension. Their next encounter in a recording studio was not so fortuitous.

"My hair was nearly as long as John Lennon's. I had on my hippie uniform — my yak vest and moccasins, torn, faded blue jeans and tie-dye shirt and a bandanna on my head. I walked over to him and said, 'Mr. Campbell, hello. I'm Jimmy Webb. I wrote "By the Time I Get to Phoenix."' He paused, looked up at me and said, 'When you gonna get a haircut?'"

Things went smoothly after that, however, as their collaborations included "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman" and other songs. Webb wrote a string of hits including "All I Know" for Art Garfunkel and "Worst That Could Happen" — recorded by both the 5th Dimension and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The 20-something Oklahoman was a bit of an oddity in the era — a hippie crafting mainstream pop.

"I was the middle-of-the-road guy. To tell you the truth, I wasn't too happy about it. I should have been thanking my lucky stars that I was friends with Mr. Sinatra, that I could call Tony Bennett and say, 'I've got a new song for you' and I had a partner, Glen Campbell, who was in this middle lane. What I really wanted to be was a rock 'n' roll star."

Webb, 78, is a storyteller at heart whether in song or conversation. He credits his father, a Southern Baptist preacher who was a magnetic orator.

"He'd take me on the road in the summer. I was the mascot/showpiece. I was an 11-, 12-year-old kid and I'd sit down at the piano and play 'Amazing Grace.' I had a flair for it."

After starting out professionally as a jazz pianist, Webb released a series of solo albums over the years, but he's best known as a songwriter, whose tunes have been recorded by everyone from the Supremes and Rosemary Clooney to Ray Charles and Barbra Streisand. He wrote a book on songwriting in 1998 as well as a 2017 memoir, "The Cake and the Rain."

Despite his frustrations in his 20s, Webb now accepts his place in music history.

"I was in a strange twilight zone between rock 'n' roll and the music of our parents' generation. Which, looking back on it, wasn't such a bad place to be, but at the time I hated it," he said. "I just wanted to be in a band. I wanted to be Crosby, Stills, Nash & Webb. There was that dichotomy and angst with my early years as a performer. But believe me, I'm happy with the way things are.

"I'm doing better business than I ever have in my life [as a performer]. I wish it had happened when I was 25 years old. It seems like it's all coming at the end."