Yes, McArthur Park no doubt speaks to a lot of people. It never spoke to me, but I could immediately grasp why it might speak to someone else...if they go for that sort of dramatic overkill...and a whole lot of people do.

It's anything but a folksong. ;-)

Whether people will react positively or negatively to a song like that is decided in one instant, by the twitch of a neuron. Either the "cake" metaphor will seem silly to them or it won't. Either the dramatic emoting will seem silly to them or it won't. If they've already heard from someone else that it's "silly", though, then the odds are stacked in favor of them thinking it is.

That's why I regard some of these songs as simply victims of feeding frenzies by people who are jumping on the bandwagon that is popular among their friends.

"Muskrat Love" is detested because it's a love song about muskrats! So? What is the problem with someone writing a love song in which the characters are muskrats? It's a little fantasy, that's all. What's wrong with it? Is cuteness automatically bad? I thought so when I was 16. I hated anything and everything that was cute on principle. Does that say anything about the relative merits of cuteness or does it say more about my state of mind at age 16?

Muskrat Love has a neat tune. I like it. I don't find the words objectionable. I am not bothered by a cute tune about 2 muskrats who are in love.