While I tend to prefer The Beatles's more experimental sound in albums such as Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Magical Mystery Tour, I can't deny that I have jammed countless times to Hey Jude. But if you were to tell me that a song deemed one of the worst of its decade that talked about cake and rain was behind the release of "Hey Jude", then maybe I should reconsider my musical preferences.
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Well, that song is "MacArthur Park", ranked as the third worst song of the '60s by Rolling Stone in 2011. Now, what does a folk song sung by Richard Harris have to do with the "Na-na-na-na's" of The Beatles single? Not the lyrics, not the chords, not the structure, but the length of the song itself.
A Lengthy Pair Of Songs
"At first, we felt like the guys who'd created the A-bomb: we were a bit afraid of what we'd done," Jimmy Webb said in an interview with The Guardian. He was the one who wrote "MacArthur Park." "I didn't know I could write something like that," he continued. To be honest, I didn't know someone could write anything like that, actually.
The infamous song has a length of seven minutes and 21 seconds. Webb was surprised that radio stations began playing it in its entirety. "I was asked to do a shorter version as a single," he said. "I refused, so eventually they put out the full seven minutes 20 seconds. George Martin once told me The Beatles let 'Hey Jude' run to over seven minutes because of 'MacArthur Park."
If you are like me who suffers from an extreme case of the Mandela Effect, you would be surprised to learn that the Beatles single's length is seven minutes and 12 seconds. That's a lot of "Na-na-na-nas," and if Webb is right, then we owe him for every single one of them.
The Worst Folk Song Ever
"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," reads MacArthur Park's lyrics. Now, I have been subject to many lyrics that could be called "abstract" or "elaborated", but leaving a cake in the rain is something I never thought I could imagine. Especially because I would have already eaten the cake altogether.
Webb also addressed the lyrics of his song, justifying the image of the cake, somehow. "I've been asked a million times: What is the cake left out in the rain?'" Webb said. "It's something I saw — we would eat cake and leave it in the rain."
He went on to describe the use of the rainy cake as a "metaphor for losing a chapter of your life." "When she broke up with me, I poured the hurt into the song," he continued. "It was always around seven minutes long — not 22 as has been written."
Either 22 or seven minutes long, I don't think I'll be listening to MacArthur's Park anytime soon. However, I'll definitely think about it when I get together with my fellow Beatlemaniacs. I'll inevitably think of a wet cake while "Na-na-ing" until there is no tomorrow.
