Thursday, February 7, 2008

someone left the cake out in the rain

via WFMU via PTW, this video of Three Degrees' mesmerizing, beautifully shot, intensely performed, well choreographed (check out the awesome 'whirlpool' move around 6:45 as they transition from the vaguely silly but vaguely sick instrumental break into the epic and sublime coda, camera tracking their hands arching up etc) and wardrobed (sweet green icing dresses) etc big band version of "MacArthur Park" is fucking blowing my mind, as is the song, which I haven't thought about inna minute -



the lyrics are so fucking incredible, I guess they are easy to kind of make fun of etc but come on who has ever combined the totally fucking heartbreaking (the cake is their relationship, a rare and hard to make recipe that baked something beautiful but is suddenly all melty and kind of gross, so poetic and true) with the totally fucking tripped out (wait seriously, what??) like this? it's like the Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' of pre-Jim Steinman pop disco epics!! highly highly recommended, plz remind me to bust this one out at an appropriately vibed (??) karaoke sesh one day -

spring was never waiting for us, boy
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

MacArthur 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
cos it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again

I recall the yellow cotton dress
foaming like a wave
on the ground around my knees
the birds, like tender babies in my hands
and the old men playing checkers by the trees etccc