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"Mr. Juice gets my song. It took a made-up undead demon but finally, someone understands that ‘MacArthur Park’ is a love song. A long love song with lots of chords and strings. And a cake, of course.” - Jimmy Webb
Certain musical moments in film remain permanently etched in our memories. There’s “Eye of the Tiger” in Rocky, “Bohemian Rhapsody” in Wayne’s World, “Tubular Bells” in The Exorcist, and, yes, “Day-O” in the original Beetlejuice. Well, we can add another to that list: Richard Harris’ 1968 version of the Jimmy Webb hit “MacArthur Park” in the newly released sequel of the 1988 Michael Keaton film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, directed by Tim Burton and in theatres now.
“Meet the New ‘Day-O,’” writes The New York Times in an article titled, “What Is That Song in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?” They continue “…Richard Harris’s 1968 psychedelic pop hit ‘MacArthur Park,’ which Donna Summer remade as a disco anthem.”
[SPOILER ALERT] “MacArthur Park,” written in 1967 by GRAMMY Award-winning singer/songwriter Jimmy Webb, is featured in the climactic wedding scene moment in the horror-comedy film. Beetlejuice (Keaton) gets main character Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) to the altar. She reluctantly agrees to marry him to save her daughter, Astrid Deetz’s (Jenna Ortega) life. A huge cake topped with slimy green icing is rolled out and then … cue “MacArthur Park!’ “MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark / All the sweet, green icing flowing down,” sings Harris as maniacal fun ensues with the possessed wedding guests dancing around the cake with oozing icing, taking turns lip-syncing to the entire song.
Since its debut, “MacArthur Park” has captivated and confounded listeners as they attempt to appreciate its classical roots and decode the lyrics, the latter continues to be quoted, interpreted, and argued about in the media. The hit song has been recorded by nearly 200 artists, including Waylon Jennings (who recorded and released three versions of the song; the original won Jennings his first GRAMMY Award in 1970), Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, the Four Tops, Tony Bennett, Carrie Underwood, and Wu-Tang Clan. Webb won the 1969 GRAMMY Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist for the Harris version. One of the most well-known versions of the song is by Donna Summer who hit No. 1 on the Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with her disco version. Summer’s version bookends the film, appear during the opening titles and the closing credits.
But it was always the Harris version that Burton wanted for this special scene.
“We all wanted a musical number,” screenwriter Alfred Gough tells Entertainment Weekly. “We just didn't know what it was. It all felt like the movie was wrapping up too neatly. And then Tim called us. Burton has a jukebox in his home, and one of its tracks is ‘MacArthur Park,’ not the Donna Summers rendition that became more popular over the years, but the original 1968 version first recorded by Irish actor and singer Richard Harris. We went and listened to it, and then we just wrote out a musical number based on that. And then we kept evolving it. We were like, 'Yes! That's the crazy, weird, insane thing you need at the end of this movie.”
Crazy, weird, and insane indeed… and Webb is loving it! “Mr. Juice gets my song. It took a made-up undead demon but finally, someone understands that ‘MacArthur Park’ is a love song. A long love song with lots of chords and strings. And a cake, of course,” he says.
The “MacArthur Park” scene is getting rave reviews. “Everybody dances in a bonkers scene set to ‘MacArthur Park.’” (USA Today) “It’s the kind of wonderful nonsense set piece that has no reason to exist except because it’s funny and because it could.” (NPR’s WBUR Boston) “Be warned that you may never hear the song ‘MacArthur Park’ in quite the same way ever again.” (The Seattle Times)
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is out now from Watertower Music and available to stream wherever you enjoy your music. Meanwhile, Webb is currently on the road. An Evening with Jimmy Webb has received rave reviews. “A night with Jimmy at the keys is not unlike getting to hear George Gershwin or Cole Porter live. It’s hard to believe one guy could have written all these amazing songs…if you get a chance to see him live, grab it. People ask why nobody writes songs like they used to. Fortunately for us all, Jimmy Webb still does,” writes American Songwriter.
The Kansas City Star writes, “Jimmy Webb delivered some of his best-known compositions, and his versions conveyed their traits and merits, their lyrical and musical panache, craftwork and sophistications. But his stories put most of them into a variety of contexts, some humorous, some historical, some novel and trivial. Jimmy Webb has mastered the convergence of poetry and music and got the fame and fortune they deserved for delivering some of the most timeless music of their time.”
Jimmy Webb tour dates:
September 22 - Paramount Hudson Valley Theater - Peekskill, NY (Jimmy Webb: The Glen Campbell Years)
September 27 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL
September 29 - The Parkway Theater - Minneapolis, MN
October 1 - City Winery St. Louis - St. Louis, MO
October 3 - Knuckleheads - Kansas City, MO
October 10 - The Canyon - Agoura Hills - Agoura Hills, CA
October 13 - The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA
October 16 - Yoshi’s - Oakland, CA
October 30 - The Vogel - Red Bank, NJ
November 7 - Kent Stage - Kent, OH
November 9 - Memorial Hall - Cincinnati, OH
November 19 - The Tin Pan - Richmond, VA
November 22 - BPAC - Pinehurst, NC
December 1 - Dosey Doe - The Woodlands, TX
December 4 - The State Theatre - Austin, TX
December 7 & 8 - Musical Instrument Museum - Phoenix, AZ
December 20 – My Father’s Place – Roslyn, NY
* All shows are "An Evening with Jimmy Webb" except where noted.
Multiple GRAMMY-winning cross-genre songwriter Jimmy Webb’s most popular songs are touchstones for a generation yet remain timeless: “MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Didn’t We,” “Galveston,” “Worst That Could Happen,” and “The Highwayman” for starters. During his live shows – which are different every night because of his incredible improvisational piano playing and wealth of stories - Webb creates a unique connection to the audience: Like a long lost uncle in town to regale with tales from the road, revealing the stories behind his hits, his first songwriting job at Motown, through a career trajectory that took a teenaged preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of his longed-for profession in Hollywood in only a few short years. His books, Tunesmith: The Art of Songwriting and memoir The Cake and the Rain demonstrate his incredible talent with words and music.
Webb has topped the charts over and over from pop to country, blues, jazz, disco to even rap and EDM with interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest including Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer, Josh Groban, Glen Campbell, The Highwaymen, Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Guns n’ Roses, and James Taylor. The Webb covers are continuous: being released for Pride Month 2024 is a hot new dance version of “MacArthur Park” by Micah McLaurin and Amber Riley.
Since Webb’s GRAMMY sweep in 1968 when his own “Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” both vied for Song of the Year ( “Up” won), to the use of his “Do What You Gotta Do” in Kanye West’s “Famous,” the man often praised as “America’s Songwriter” remains a respected icon in popular music – and continues to challenge his artistic boundaries with projects like a classical nocturne. He is always included in the lists of the greatest songwriters.
Jimmy lives on the North Shore of Long Island, New York, with his wife, a PBS television host and producer, Laura Savini. He has six spectacular grandchildren, five sons, and a daughter.
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