[New-Poetry] Scholarly dispute

[mykelmarsh at comcast.net]

Sid Vicious actually made "I Did It My Way" work in a purely profane and poetic way. It is not the lyrics it is the performance that counts. Macarthur Park might even work if someone found the proper attitude to convey the stupidity of its content. 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu> 
To: "NewPoetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 8:23:24 AM 
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Scholarly dispute 

How could I have forgotten "MacArthur Park"?  I feel that "My Way" is bombastic and awful in performance, but the words alone on the page are mostly just blah.    They don't quite rise to the level of "MacArthur Park"'s glorious lyrical badness.   

This is a song that, entirely apart from Richard Harris's cringe-worthy performance, is just bad poetry.  Let us recall that it begins with these words: 

Spring was never waiting for us, girl 
It ran one step ahead 
As we followed in the dance 
Between the parted pages and were pressed, 
In love's hot, fevered iron 
Like a striped pair of pants 
  
CHORUS 
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 
'cause it took so long to bake it 
And I'll never have that recipe again 
Oh, no! 

This is truly Stuffed Owl material.  I'm surprised there was never a punk band called "Love's Hot Fevered Iron."  Icky strained & mixed metaphors, adolescent self-absorption, stunningly oblivious sentimentality, and hilarious rhymes like "take it/bake it," which it is a miracle anyone could say OR sing without bursting into laughter. . . .  And like most solid contenders for Worst Song Lyrics Ever, it's insufferably earnest.  (I disqualify any lyrics that are *trying* to be funny or absurd.) 

I think R. Kelly's "Pregnant" has many wonderfully smelly passages (like the "cutie/booty" rhyme), but, upon sober consideration, I am awarding my personal palm to "MacArthur Park." 

But let's go to the text.  The opening of "MacArthur Park" is quoted above.  Again, here's how "Pregnant" begins.  Judges, what is your decision? 

"Pregnant" 

Girl you make me wanna get you pregnant, 
Girl you make me wanna get you pregnant, 
Lay your body down and get you pregnant, 
Knock you up, pregnant, Knock you up 

[R. KELLY] 
Can you believe I'm in the club with a girl who has a man, 
And take her to the hotel for just a one night stand, 
See I'm a playa so I ain't tryna take her on no dates, 
To much like my patrone man I'm just tryna take it straight, 
Untill I met this girl in the club with an unbelievable booty, 
Sweetest girl in the world and I mean it and on top of that shes a cutie, 
I ain't seen nothing like her around here in a while, 
And if I had a girl she'd be the one to bear my child, 
Telling myself I'm a playa so I keep tryna shake it off, 
But I keep on seeing this big old house with a picket fence and a dog, 
Never felt nothing like this, 
Shes more than a mistress enough to handle my business, 
Now put that girl in my kitchen, 




On 11/15/10 5:37 PM, " Rsgwynn1 at cs.com " < Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > wrote: 



"MacArthur Park" and "My Way" have to be in contention. 

_______________________________________________ 

-- 


==================================================== 
David Graham 
grahamd at ripon.edu 
Home Page: 
http://web.me.com/drjazz/ 

Poetry Library: 
http://web.me.com/drjazz/Site/DGPoLibrary.html 
==================================================== 



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