Where's the Playground, Susie?
Where's the playground, Susie?
To listen, click below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s17Be3PZA8c
One of the lesser-known of Glen Campbell’s songs written by Jimmy Webb, this song peaked at #26 on the charts in 1969. I had always thought of it as another “Come Back When You Grow Up Girl” or “Young Girl Get Out of My Mind” kind of song, but finding out that Jimmy Webb had written it caused me to reexamine the lyrics, and now it seems as if it has a different meaning altogether. The singer seems to be confronting his lover as if to say, “How did we get here? How did things get to be such a mess? Obviously you aren’t happy with me and you want to play around, but where are the boundaries?” Because it doesn’t get much airplay (I haven’t heard it in years and didn’t even know it was a Jimmy Webb song until I started my research for this blog), I am including the lyrics here for the edification of the reader.
The end has come and found us here
With our toys scattered all around us here
The puzzle that we never found an answer for
Still asks us, darlin', just what all the games were for
And here we stand in a box of sand
Where's the playground Susie?
You're the one who's supposed to know her way around
Where's the playground Susie
If I don't stay around?
If I don't stay around?
The carousel has stopped us here
It twirled a time or two and then it dropped us here
And still you're not content with something about me
But what merry-go-round can you ride without me
To take your hand
How would you stand?
Where's the playground Susie
If I decide to let you go and play around?
Where's the playground Susie
If I don't stay around?
If I don't stay around?
Where's the playground Susie?
You're the one who's supposed to know her way around
Where's the playground Susie
If I decide to let you go and play around?
Let’s face it – half the songs on the top 40 that contained a girl’s name contained the name Susie or some variation thereof (Susan, Sue) – but Jimmy’s use of the name is a possible confirmation that this song, MacArthur Park, By the Time I Get to Phoenix and The Worst That Could Happen were all inspired by his love affair with a woman named Susan, who did marry someone else.
posted by Susan Harrington at 6:11 AM
6 Comments:
You are correct that the name Susie was Jimmy's girlfriend from Colton High. She in fact married someone else.
But unlike countless listeners who've shed a tear or two over the anguished romanticism of that sentiment since actor-singer Richard Harris took it to the top of the pop charts in 1968, Ronstadt has a special attachment to the song.
She's the reason Webb wrote it.
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Ronstadt — then Suzy Horton — was the flesh-and-blood muse Webb immortalized for "the yellow cotton dress foaming like a wave on the ground around your knees" that she wore one afternoon while the couple ate lunch in L.A.'s MacArthur Park.
"I don't know who gets worse killed by this stuff — you or me," said her husband of nearly two decades, Bobby Ronstadt, dabbing away some tears of his own as he listened to the song one more time with his wife. "I asked her when we first got to know each other, 'How could you not see what this guy's got for you?' And she'd answer, 'Well, I liked his songs.'"
Even as a teenager Jimmy Webb had written many songs before and after his family moved from Oklahoma to Southern California in the early 1960s. But it was his romance with Horton, which bloomed when both were high school students in Colton, Calif., that resulted in many of Webb's most important hits: not only "MacArthur Park" but also "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Where's the Playground, Suzie," "Didn't We" and "The Worst That Could Happen," among them.
Suzy Ronstadt — who became a relative of Linda Ronstadt after marrying Linda's cousin, Bobby, in 1993 — looks back on the on-again, off-again love affair with Webb during the 1960s and early 1970s with sweetness and humility for all the widely cherished music that came out of it.
But Webb was more smitten with her at the time than she with him. "It was unrequited love," said the woman who once held the title of Miss Colton — and who today sings in a pop-folk vocal quartet I Hear Voices!, which brings her back to Southern California for a performance Sunday at McCabe's in Santa Monica.
After high school, she and a girlfriend landed jobs working for Aetna Life Insurance, which had an office adjacent to MacArthur Park. Webb, then a struggling songwriter who lived nearby in Silver Lake, would meet Horton for lunch there regularly.
Both longing for lives in show business, Webb scored a low-paying job for Jobete Publishing, an offshoot of Motown Records, while Horton became a dancer and moved to Lake Tahoe to work in the casino showrooms.
There she met and married her first husband, and when word reached Webb, one result was the song "The Worst That Could Happen," the 1969 hit for the Brooklyn Bridge that begins, "Girl, I heard you're getting married, heard you're getting married…. maybe it's the best thing for you, but it's the worst that could happen — to me."
That marriage was short-lived, and Horton returned to Los Angeles and reconnected with Webb, who had been riding high on hit after hit and traveling in rarefied circles and subsequently fell in love with Rosemarie Frankland, a model and actress who once held the title of Miss World.
Horton later wrote "Miss Small Town," in which she sings "I was Miss Small Town, but she was Miss World," about trying to compete for a man's affections with someone she perceived as out of her league.
"Jimmy's songs have followed me my whole life and we are still friends to this day," said Ronstadt, her wavy golden blond hair flowing just past her shoulders. "Jimmy has a lovely wife and I have a wonderful husband. They have both had to deal with our histories. I mean no disrespect to anyone but I have to say, I have loved Jimmy for 50 years and I always will."
One of great lost haunting Web/Campbell tunes. I just love the melody. Nothing can evoke the late 60s like Jimmy and Glen. Love this!!
This mostly unheralded Jimmy Webb song has been in my figurative "playlist" since I first heard it back in 1969. I have never been sure of the meaning of the lyrics but I know that it is one of the few songs that will bring tears to my eyes. Your explanation seems in line with my thinking which enhances my appreciation of it. And, thanks to your blog I have learned more about the intriguing MacArthur Park. Thanks for that, too.
Just like I do all his other songs, I LOVE this one. R.I.P., bro. Loved listening to it on the radio in 1969.
Released on April 19, 1969 reaching #26 on May 31.
A few words about this song for songwriters:
Remain with the metaphor. In this song, Jimmy
Webb creates two young people in a love situation,
and uses the metaphor of playland. There is a carousel,
a “box of sands” -- later on that plural, toys, puzzle,
“games”, and a playground as a deeper metaphor
for the fun-loving promise of a successful love relationship.
“Toys scattered all around us, here” represents the
scattered pieces of the relationship. The second stanza
brings out the fun of a merry-go-round, carousel and
young energetic people in love, signaling what has been
lost. Moreover, the persona has the double concern
of grief over a lost relationship, as well as Susie’s
abandonment, a common concern of people who even
realize the relationship is to end.
The song has character, conflict, and emotionality
in the poetry. There are internal rhymes such as
“found us here” and “ around us, here” as well as
“stay around” and “play around”. The lyrics are often
quoted as “in a box of sand” but if you listen to Glenn
Campbell’s singing, you will hear “in a box of sands”.
The plural deepens the ocean of confusion and despair.
“Where’s the playground” is a reference to an implied
promise that holds Susie to a fulfilling relationship
wherein the persona has held up his end. However,
Susie should not be blamed because no relationship
bears a guarantee of compatibility. Such would be the
stuff of songs where people meet or people break up,
as in life, where relationships begin, try with love,
and love and/or life may end.
So, our songs are age-old stories told by minstrels for
compassion, understanding, and sharing, and celebrating
when we win with love. Our songs tell us who we are,
by telling us our “something” about a love relationship
is the same as something else (metaphor), but most
importantly, we may be the same as each other, when
the time comes.
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