MacArthurs Park: Take Five

1. MacArthur Park is a real park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

MacArthur's Park in Los Angeles

(sign up to follow by email)

While Westlake is becoming a safer area, there still is crime, though most of it is theft from vehicles. According to the LA Times, Westlake's weekly crime rate of 5 crimes per 10,000 people in one week is considered average.  

Read more:Rent Cafe

2. About that "cake out in the rain," Jimmy Webb, who wrote the song, explained in Q magazine: "It's clearly about a love affair ending. The person singing it is using the cake and the rain as a metaphor." 

Jimmy Webb

3. The love affair Webb speaks of was with Suzy Horton, who left him in 1993 and married Linda Ronstadt's cousin, Bobby. 

Suzy Horton

4. When Webb found out Suzy Horton was getting married, it inspired him to write the song "Worst That Could Happen."

5. Jimmy Webb offered the song to Bones Howe, who produced The Association, for possible inclusion on the group's fourth album. Howe loved it, but The Association didn't want to devote that much space on the album to Webb's project, so they rejected it.  The song went to Richard Harris.

Read more: Songfacts