By Brad Gallagher:
Most everyone has, at one point or another, heard the legend of King Arthur and Guinevere and the fictional realm of Camelot. Its a story of a perfect kingdom and a perfect love between the king and queen of that kingdom. A love story to match no others. Until, of course something unexpected happens. The king gets busy with his work of protecting the realm and assembling the knights of the round table, and the queen gets lonely. Then along comes the brave and handsome knight who we all know as Sir Lancelot, and the perfect love story takes a turn for the worst.
This story has been told many times in many ways over the centuries. Two of my favorite depictions of this story were the Mary Stewart novels in which she told the story in three volumes, “The Crystal Cave” (1970), “The Hollow Hills” (1973), and “The Last Enchantment” (1979). And of course, who can forget the 1967 Academy Award Winning film “Camelot”, staring Richard Harris as King Arthur, and Venessa Redgrave as Guenevere. Both tell the story of the love between King Arthur and Guenevere , and of how Guenevere and Sir Lancelot later fall in love and experienced a secret romance that all but tore the kingdom apart, and how through it all King Arthur remained committed his queen even after finding out about Guenevere and Lancelot’s relationship.
But did you know that Richard Harris was instrumental in depicting another love story? And this one was a chart topper.
As The Story Goes:
Back in 1967, the same year that Camelot was first released in theaters, a songwriter by the name of Jimmy Webb was approached by Bones Howe, the producer of the group “The Association”, and asked to write a song for them. Howe told Webb that he wanted him to write a pop song that had different movements and changes in tempos and themes, like an orchestral piece, but still a pop song. So, Jimmy accepted the challenge and went to work.
Now a couple years earlier, in 1965, Jimmy had met the love of his life. Her name was Susie Horton. At that time, Susie was working for Aetna insurance and her office was right across the street from a park. Jimmy would often meet Susie for lunch in that park and the two fell in love. It was a wonderful relationship, much like the great love affair between Arthur and Guenevere. It was yet another love story to match no others. The two spent hours in that park over the months and their relationship flourished… Until one day when it all came to an end for reasons we may never know, and the two broke up.
Jimmy was heart broken, and when he was approached by Howe two years later to write this new song he channeled all of the memories and emotions that he had experienced in that park that year with Susie. The park that Jimmy and Susie always met at was the famous “McArthur Park” in Los Angeles, and the song that he wrote for Howe was simply named after that park, “McArthur Park”. You may remember the song by it’s strange lyric:
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 know, What does that have to do with a love story? You ask.
Well, the inspiration for the song was everything Webb remembered in that park during those lunches he spent with Susie. In the song he also recalls her “Yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave On the ground beneath your knees”. And the “Birds, like tender babies in your hands”, and the “Old men playing Chinese checkers by the trees”. So, someone must have left a cake out in the rain at some point and it became part of his memory of a love story.
In 2014, Webb was asked about the song in an interview, and he said this: “Everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing Chinese 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.”1
When Webb presented the finished song, “McArthur Park”, to Bones Howe and The Association for their consideration, they rejected it. But ironically, the lead actor of the film “Camelot”, “Richard Harris”, loved it and asked if he could record it. And the rest is history. McArthur Park topped out at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1968, and in 1969, Webb won a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists. (and The Association didn’t want the song… lol)
In the years since, McArthur Park has been covered by many artists including Waylon Jennings, and of course Donna Summer who’s 1978 version reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Richard Harris went on to star in many famous films such as, “The Guns of Navarone”, “The Count if Monte Cristo”, and two of the Harry Potter film as “Albus Dumbledore. I bet you didn’t know that Dumbledore could sing, did you?
So now you know of a connection between two love stories and a man, Richard Harris, who played a part in both of them… Sort of.
So come back and see me real soon right here on As The Story Goes.
Watch Richard Harris perform McArthur Park Here: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=565683386&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS873US873&tbm=vid&sxsrf=AM9HkKmm5EoSRnpSNEEYUDZkPdJYfAboBQ:1694795750924&q=macarthur+park+richard+harris+lyrics&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjphc2Vhq2BAxXvD0QIHVbLAFIQ8ccDegQIVBAJ&biw=1438&bih=699&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:a12b829f,vid:NfXEzWW8CtQ,st:0
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[1] Fallick, Alan H. (October 8, 2014). “Jimmy Webb discusses famous lyrics in ‘MacArthur Park'”. Newsday. Archived from the original on October 12, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2014.
AS THE STORY GOES 