Here’s one cake that didn’t get left out too long in the rain: the eternal pop pastry that is “MacArthur Park.” The song’s epic length and unusual structure haven’t kept it from turning into a decades-spanning perennial, one that is just finding yet another new life as a result of its extensive use in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which scores a full-on movie-musical climax with actor-singer Richard Harris’ original 1968 version before switching to Donna Summer’s disco remake for the end credits.

Jimmy Webb is one of the indisputably greatest songwriters of all time, known for undying classics like “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Highwayman.” “MacArthur Park” is undoubtedly a more polarizing song than those others, but more music fans than not will break into a grin upon hearing the start of a seven-minute, suite-like epic that likens a failed romance to...