Someone Left The Cake Out In The Rain: ‘The Clown by Me’ by Michael Keene is about someone leaving the cake out in the rain. In the first stanza, Keene describes how he was looking forward to his first day at work, having gotten his dream job as a clown at Macarthur Park’s annual Clowns on Parade, a popular event where clowns from around the country converge for a day of fun and entertainment. It all starts when someone leaves the cake out in the rain. A homeless man comes by and finds the empty cake along with a note that reads: “I’ve been colonized. Enjoy.”
While this may seem like a minor thing, the irony is that the cake is not only left out in the rain but also left out in the coldest part of town. While it is a wonder that someone left the cake out in the rain, the real question should be, “Why did anyone leave their cake out in the rain?” A more likely origin for this silly song is a story about someone whose livelihood depended upon this talent (and who may have been fired if they were not able to perform their talent while under the rain). Or perhaps the incident that spawned the rhyme began when a clown was asked to entertain someone in the rain; the clown thought that it would be funny if he left the cake out in the rain to see what kind of reaction he got. He may have been wrong, but in the end, the cake did end up becoming known as the “rainy cake.”
The literal meaning behind the rhyme is that someone left the cake out in the rain, probably to get some kind of reaction, whether positive or negative, from whoever they left it with. While this particular story does paint an accurate and interesting picture of how the rhyme came to be, it seems that it is also telling us a little bit too much about what life is like in the modern world, or at least the type of life that most people live. Let’s look at what the true meaning of this particular line is.
The first stanza of Fahrenheit on the Rain begins with the lines “The clockwise and counter-clockwise turnaround, I don’t think that I can take it anymore / I don’t think that I can take it any longer / I don’t think that I can take it on any longer / But I will try” In this song, there are two different meanings for the word “rain.” First, the clockwise and counter-clockwise turns around represent a life of leisure, happiness, and enjoyment. The second meaning is that the song’s second stanza, which depicts someone who left the cake out in the rain, symbolizes the pains of childbirth and the narrator’s pain and suffering. This is quite a drastic change from the first stanza, which describes a life of blissful uneventfulness and happiness.
While Fahrenheit on the Rain is certainly not a song about love, it does have one very significant similarity to one of Robert Frost’s famous ballads, “Can I sleep with more birds?” In that poem, Frost compares the pains of life to the flow of water, and he concludes that if we can just find a way to shut the water away, then our lives would be much happier. That’s a pretty good description of someone leaving the cake out in the rain, doesn’t it? It would almost certainly alleviate the narrator’s pain, as well.
In addition to the similarity between the lyrics and the imagery in the song, another important point of similarity between the lyrics and the song’s imagery is the overall message. Both songs ultimately lead to the same conclusion: someone left the cake out in the rain. The difference is in how they get there. Depending on who you ask, that decision could be either deserved or undeserved.
On the pessimistic side, someone left the cake out in the rain because they had to go out of town that night, or they had run out of cake, or it was the first day of summer and someone needed to go to the emergency room. These explanations make sense, to some extent. But in the case of Fahrenheit, the song suggests that people leave the restaurant too early in the morning because it’s raining, which in and of itself suggests that the restaurant isn’t very popular. This is only further perpetuated by the chorus: “And I will never have that recipe again / If you leave the cake out in the rain.”
In a world where everyone seems to leave the kitchen in a hurry these days, perhaps it’s time to take a step back from the stove and consider what is really important in life. I’m not suggesting that we give up the idea of cooking a delicious dessert – far from it! My point is just that there’s a right way and a wrong way to bake a cake. And if someone left the cake out in the rain, then they did it the wrong way.
