MacArthur Park

The other day, I was listening to an oldies radio show that plays songs that used to be hits, but that are not played very often. The song "MacArthur Park" came on about the same time my older daughter came in to the room and started crocheting. I thought that I might ask her what she thought about the song, because I can remember when it was played on the radio all the time. I think that some people perceived the song as being a bit overwrought, but I can't remember anybody suffocating in laughter over how ridiculous the song is. Meanwhile, we have been exposed to a couple of decades of Dave Barry columns in which he mocks the song as being the "worst ever." So now, of course, the song is more likely to inspire laughter - or at least a wry smile - rather than the sorrowful loneliness it was meant to evoke. So I wondered if a person from my daughter's generation were to hear the song "fresh," how would she respond.

While I was thinking of a way to ask my daughter to direct her attention to the song on the radio without tipper her off to what I was wondering, she started shaking with laughter. I asked her what was up, and she said, "Are you listening to the lyrics?" (Actually, since she is starting to talk in teenagerese, it sounded more like, "Are you listening? To the lyrics?") So my question was answered without me ever having to ask it.

This question seems to point to a deeper question. When this song came out, why didn't we laugh about it? Was the nation in some sort of delirious trance in which lyrics like these - "MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark/ All the sweet, green icing flowing down. / Someone left the cake out in the rain. / And I don't think that I can make it / because it took so long to bake it / And I'll never have that recipe again, oh no" - actually seem somewhat moving. Did it take Dave Barry to snap us out of a haze that our civilization will never fall into again? What songs are on the radio now that my daughter's children will laugh about?