Fifty years ago, ‘the worst song ever written’ hit the radio. Now Donna Summer is reviving it — again.

Fifty years ago this month, the worst song ever written wafted out of transistor radios. And it continues to be one of the greatest hits.

“MacArthur Park,” written by Jimmy Webb and first seared into our consciousness by Irish actor Richard Harris, began its climb up the charts on April 1968. At seven minutes and 20 seconds long, it was an oddity for the Top 40.

Still, the song caught on in an America gripped by the Vietnam War. It managed to reach No 2 on the Billboard charts as listeners either were enthralled with the orchestral song’s “deep” message or ridiculed it for its famous nonsensical phrase: “Someone left the cake out in the rain; I don’t think that I can take it,’cause it took so long to bake and I’ll never have that recipe again.”

Oh, that soaring crescendo!

LISTEN TO RICHARD HARRIS SING MACARTHUR PARK

But in 1978, Donna Summer took the song and turned it into a disco-psychedelic fusion opus that — even if you hated the genre — made you listen. Some call Summer’s rendition, which reached No. 1 on the charts, a seminal moment in disco history.

Anyway, like it or hate it, everyone knows “MacArthur Park,” which still gets airplay today.

The bashing of the song has run parallel to its endurance. As late as 1997, Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry wrote “Book of Bad Songs.” Guess which song won the top honor? Barry called “MacArthur Park,” and Harris’ overwrought interpretation, “hyperdramatic.”

Today, Barry says: “I’m still not crazy about ‘MacArthur Park.’ But I no longer think of it as the ‘Worst Song Ever,’ since that title now belongs to almost every song I hear on the radio.”

Another convert?

Now as it turns 50, a just-opened Broadway play, “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” honoring the career of the disco queen, features a barn-burner rendition of “MacArthur Park,” performed by the three actresses who play Summer at different stages of her life. The play is produced by sometime Miami Beach resident and producer Tommy Mottola, who co-founded Casablanca Records, Summer’s label during her heyday.

And in a brand-new release of Summer’s many hits, there’s “MacArthur Park” competing with “Bad Girls,” “Last Dance” and “Love to Love You Baby.” Summer, who lived in Naples, Florida, died of lung cancer at 63.

So is the song she revived and turned into her biggest hit a classic? Yes, but it has always been plagued by this question: What the bejesus is it about?

That’s easy — it’s about true love, the loss of true love, the acceptance of the loss of true love and a resignation to life apart from that true love and, then, the killer summation: “But after all the loves of my life, you’ll still be the one.”

Goosebumps.

The success — or the infamy of the song — is largely because of Harris. In 1968, he was fresh off his starring role in “Camelot.” He took Webb’s song and made us believe the lyrics were introspective. He didn’t just sing the song, he gave an Oscar-worthy performance.

And to think — he picked the song out of the rejection pile.

Webb, who also wrote such hits as “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Up,Up and Away,” says in his autobiography that, upon request, he wrote the song for the group The Association.

He gave them his opus about his muse/true love, a high school sweetheart named Suzy Horton. She’s the girl immortalized in “the yellow cotton dress foaming like a wave on the ground around your knees.” Horton worked at an insurance company near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Webb would meet her there for lunch and claims everything he describes in the song, he saw at the park.

The Association hated it.

Enter Harris, whom Webb met at fundraiser in Los Angeles in 1967. Harris asked him for songs for his debut album. Two weeks later, Harris sent Webb a ticket to London for the recording session. The two sat in a studio, trying out songs.

“MacArthur Park was at the bottom of my pile,” Webb says. “By the time I played it, we had moved on to straight brandy, but Richard slapped the piano.

“Oh Jimmy Webb. I love that! I’ll make a hit out of that, I will!”

He did.

This story was originally published April 29, 2018 at 11:48 PM with the headline "Fifty years ago, ‘the worst song ever written’ hit the radio. Now Donna Summer is reviving it — again.."