MACARTHUR PARK by JIMMY WEBB. Poem by Doug Jacquier.

Jeff Duff on the Midday Show with Ray Martin.

A sea-green magic carpet ride

As a teenager, she had dreamed of

wearing an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny polka-dot bikini

while playing Desdemona in Othello.

As an adult, she a wore a polka-dot blouse

and performed Shakespeare in Macarthur Park

on summer evenings and

wore blue pants, not the yellow cotton dress

foaming like a wave on the ground around her knees.

She co-starred with a man wearing

a hot fever ironed striped pair of pants

bearing cake he’d left out in the rain,

and who followed her in the dance

as Macarthur Park began melting in the dark,

with sea-green icing flowing down and

their passion flowed like rivers in the sky.

They rode a flying carpet together

and travelled with birds

like tender babies in their hands and

looked down on old men

playing checkers by the trees.

StereoStory # 699

Macarthur Park by Jimmy Webb

Spring was never waiting for us, dear
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no

I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground beneath your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing Chinese checkers by the trees

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark

All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left my cake out in the rain
And I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no, oh

MacArthur Park lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group