Jimmy Webb seems to hold this weird corner of the music industry where he gets this simultaneous respect and derision, when I couldn't say why him writing about a cake out in the rain was so absurd and deserved of ridicule. His band America wrote one of the most, dark and depressing theme songs for a children's movie. I could blame him for any darkness that seeped into my brain by way of his lyrics that I never fully remembered as a kid. I'd get to watch the Last Unicorn whenever I rented it, but of all the songs that stuck, it was that delightful dirge, In the Sea. And only a fragment stuck there.
There was a massive gap between me last seeing it as a kid and revisiting it as a teenager. I spent maybe two years borrowing this VHS off people whenever I saw it in their houses, and this was in my audiotape movie phase where I recorded entire movies (nearly) onto a cassette to listen to incessantly, as copying VHS tapes was outside my capability. We only knew one person who owned two VCRs, I think once we somehow had two, maybe my brother brought his back and I was able to copy the Craft while watching it for the first time. Then one miraculous day I was able to find a 10.00 VHS copy of the Last Unicorn. I didn't wind up owning a VCR of my own until I had a job, it was one of the first "expensive" things I bought.
The other thing I had to go through great pains to get online was the soundtrack. This was back when I spent hours at my parents' house using Acquisition (not Napster or Limewire, I had Limewire and somehow didn't infect my parents' eMac with a virus) to download the Last Unicorn soundtrack. I tried to find clean copies as a lot of them were clipped or poorly transferred to digital, but somehow I found them all. I did pretty well with other songs back then, particularly with Soundtracks. But many years later during another nostalgia binge I tried to track down a CD copy for a decent price, and successfully managed to do so despite the cover being cracked to shit.
My point was, the songs Webb provided lyrics for and sang were the most depressing on the album. This isn't a fun, fuzzy movie to put on for little kids, so whoever put it on for me originally (thank you, whoever you are) they probably didn't know the hell they were going to unleash on my family from me being irrevocably obsessed with it. Once you're a grown up (or at least 16), this soundtrack hits you in the feels on another level. I was just listening to the theme and realised it was pretty out there to include a reference to the Morning Star in the words, something my kid brain missed. I think Webb was brought on to really put in whatever depressive tone was needed that another lyricist might not consider.
I also just found out that son of a bitch Seth Macfarlene put a cover of That's All I've Got That Say performed by Leighton Meester of all people on his Star Trek parody show the Orville. If I bothered to watch it and had seen this I'd have gone berko with absolute rage. It's not a bad rendition, actually, but fuck him for making me feel shit and for him even being aware of something that good in the first place. Art Garfunkle also did a cover, and it's very pretty, so clearly this song got to people enough they went to the effort of doing their own renditions. I'd shove this song in front of any Disney love ballad, and I'm not even saying those ballads suck, this is just different.
I think people do love Jimmy Webb in spite of MacArthur Park (I only know it from the hilarious Simpson's gag). It's not like you were trying to stop this guy from making music, someone gave it a good review and said it had Wagnerian moments, but I seem to remember either Leonard Maltin or Roger Ebbert trashing the soundtrack for how depressing it was. It's one of the best scores of a film and it just doesn't get its dues for how perfect it is. Even now I'm seeing why I like baroque music, why I'm okay with folk stuff and orchestral arrangements. The only good thing about doing proper music theory in high school was getting tapes of stuff I genuinely liked. It sucked we were forced to do stupid essays, I did come away with a better appreciation of classical music arrangement than if we'd gotten to listen to pop songs all period. I honestly think the school found out the previous music teacher wasn't teaching either school's much, but we all loved music class because we got to hang out and play our own stuff. Finding out this was my first class first day of high school, I was thrilled we'd get to just hang out for two periods before lunch with the same lady. Then I was rudely surprised by the new lady and her methods. I only took it for three years since I sucked at a lot of other elective classes and it was just easier to do it while I was forced to keep playing an instrument.
But I digress. Here's a few lyrics from the soundtrack you wouldn't see in a Disney score:
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