How ‘MacArthur Park’ Became the New ‘Day-O’ in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Some spoilers follow.

It’s the climactic moment in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

Our title trickster has Lydia right where he wants her, in a red gown standing beside him before a priest at the altar. She has agreed to marry him in order to save the life of her daughter. A towering cake is rolled out, topped with slimy green icing and Lydia and Beetlejuice figures.

And then … the cake starts to run.

“MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark / All the sweet, green icing flowing down,” a male voice intones (“sings” would be too generous) as the possessed wedding party — including Lydia’s stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara) — flap around the cake, taking turns lip-syncing verses.

The nonsensical sequence, which the film’s director, Tim Burton, has said was largely improvised, sets the tone for a wedding from hell. The song seems as odd a choice as the use of Harry Belafonte’s version of the Jamaican folk tune “Day-O” to score the dinner-table possession scene in Burton’s original 1988 film.

What is that song? Why did Burton tap it as the new “Day-O”? What do the lyrics mean? Here’s a guide.

What is that song?

It’s “MacArthur Park,” a folk-pop ballad the singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb wrote in 1967. It was inspired by scenes he had observed while occasionally meeting his high school sweetheart, Susie Horton, for lunch in the real-life MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.

Who ‘sings’ it?

If you are a Harry Potter fan who said it almost sounds like … no, it can’t be … well, it is.

New flash: Richard Harris, who played the Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, was also a musical artist.