MacArthur Park, a song composed by Jimmy Webb

[WildRosie]

For those of us who are at least familiar with this dramatic story-song, and those who even like it (I do), which other singers could also have delivered a respectable performance of it ?

The 1968 hit by Richard Harris is perhaps the best known, followed by Donna Summer's disco stab in 1978. I believe Andy Williams also recorded the song.

P.J. Proby perhaps would have gone way over the top.

Sammy Davis Junior - a likely contender.

Glenn Close - would be worth hearing.

Tom Jones - see P.J. Proby.

Shirley Bassey, assuming she hasn't already recorded it at her peak.

Can't think of any others just now.

The great Scott Walker would have done a wonderful version.

I bet Annie Lennox could have done it justice in her heyday.

And I wouldn't mind hearing a Ukelele Orchestra version (if you've heard their Wuthering Heights and love it, you;llknow what I mean.)

I love that song.

Are the lyrics some kind of clever preemption of post modernism, or just bizarre and possibly crap?

Although I shouldn't reply really as nobody responded to my excellent attempt to start a thread about The Shell Seekers (old, bit of a classic, adored by many, slightly crap).

Lewis Capaldi

Elvis sings a couple of lines of it during his 68 comeback special. Would like to have heard him sing a full version!

@cornstarch I think Sammy Davies Jnr did a version that sounded like William Shatner. Quite a feat.

I’d like to hear a rap version.

Love The Shell Seekers by the way. However I digress. Off to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert in November...MacArthur Park is part of the soundtrack!

Is The Shell Seekers set partly in a Cornish vineyard? I was once doing some work in one and there was an influx of Germans all talking about Rosamund Pilcher. Should I read it @MorrisZapp? Without much thinking about it, I'd vaguely assumed it was a lightweight Aga Saga but of fluff...?

I bumped my Shell Seekers thread! It's up! Yes partly set in Cornwall, also Ibiza, London, Gloucester and briefly a very posh bit of Edinburgh :)

Total aga saga. There's an actual aga in it.

I used to work with a music snob at work who tole me this was his favourite song. I said I prferred the Donna Summer version

He went into a rage and never spoke to me again

I heard it in a small bar in New York played by a local band in the 90’s. It was fab. No idea who the band were.

The Disturbed.

After hearing their version of 'Sound of Silence' (well worth a listen if you've never heard it). I think they could do a unique rendition.

The song is about a failed, or at least failing, relationship. I suppose the 'sweet green icing flowing down' is appropriately symbolic of this decay. Interesting that Jimmy Webb used 'icing' rather than 'frosting', the usual American term.

I'd love to hear a Tori Amos version, it would definitely be different!

I feel this should get a mention here...
g.co/kgs/AfX7gw

(that's a YouTube link, nothing nefarious)

Katie Price 🎶

I have loved this song since childhood!

The passion! The delivery! The bizarreness! The convoluted maybe-metaphor!

Glenn Close starred in Sunset Boulevard and was fabulous.

How about Kelsey Grammar?

I didn't know Kelsey Grammer was a chanteuse. Apparently, Mandy Patinkin thinks he is too.

Levi Stubbs could have done well with MacArthur Park.

DH is currently obsessed with Jimmy Webb. We have various versions of the Lineman of the County on rotation at the moment. I’m plumping for Johnny Cash for that one. I guess he’d do a good job on McArthur Park too.

Wichita Lineman, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Up, Up And Away are all Webb classics.

I should also mention John Rowles, the New Zealand baritone who gave us 'If I Only Had Time'. MacArthur Park would surely fit his repertoire.

Omg Leonard Cohen, can you imagine?!

No, not personally, Hedgehog. I know a few Leonard Cohen songs but I have never heard him singing any of them, so I can't comment on his likely delivery .