Posted on 06/16/2024 7:49:36 AM PDT by DFG
I love Tom Petty songs, but that video is super creepy and macabre. I had never seen it before. I’ll never watch it again (on purpose).
Written in the garage of Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell, the track was originally titled “Indiana Girl” by Petty– a reference that stuck around in the song’s opening lines, She grew up in an Indiana town…she grew up tall and she grew up right / With them Indiana boys on an Indiana night. The basic riff for the song had been swirling around in writing sessions for a while but had never found a permanent home.
n an interview with Songfacts, Campbell explained how the song came together. “It was called ‘Indiana Girl,’ the first chorus was ‘Hey, Indiana Girl, go out and find the world.’ We liked the song and Rick Rubin suggested we cut it.”
He continued, “Tom was singing the chorus, and he decided he just couldn’t get behind singing about Hey, Indiana Girl. We went back and about a week later he came in and said ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ so he changed the chorus to Last dance with Mary Jane. In the verse, there is still the thing about an Indiana girl on an Indiana night, just when it gets to the chorus he had the presence of mind to give it a deeper meaning.”
Who is Mary Jane?
Though Petty never explained exactly what the meaning of the song was about, two main interpretations have taken precedence.
The first sees the group singing goodbye to Petty’s first wife Jane Benyo. Though the pair officially got divorced three years after the song was released, in Petty: The Biography, author Warren Zanes revealed that Benyo would call Petty “regularly, obsessively, and threaten suicide if he said he was hanging up.” While he was still alive, Petty himself admitted the couple fought often and even credited his former wife for keeping their family together while on the road.
I was introduced and we both started groovin’ She said, “I dig you, baby, but I got to keep movin’ on, keep movin’ on
While the lyrics seem to point to a lover in Petty’s life, Benyo grew up in Gainesville, Florida in the same neighborhood as Petty, making the lyrics she moved down here at the age of eighteen…I was introduced and we both started groovin‘ a bit of a stretch.
Another, and more widely accepted meaning, is that “Mary Jane” is used as slang for marijuana, telling the story of how Petty was introduced to the drug by personifying it as a young woman.
Last dance with Mary Jane One more time to kill the pain I feel summer creepin’ in and I’m tired of this town again
Throughout the song, he talks of “killing the pain” with Mary Jane and using her to leave his tired old town for a while. With Petty publicly announcing his affinity for the drug, this meaning seems to hold more weight.
“I’m mostly just a reefer guy. It’s a musical drug,” Petty told Men’s Journal in 2014. “I’ve had a pipeline of marijuana since 1967.”
Campbell offered his two cents on the lyrics saying, “My take on it is it can be whatever you want it to be. A lot of people think it’s a drug reference, and if that’s what you want to think, it very well could be, but it could also just be a goodbye love song.”
Music Video
Petty’s music videos often took a turn for the weird but the visual for “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” might just take the cake. In the video, Petty plays a mortician—if he seems to fall into the role naturally it could have something to do with his pre-fame days as a gravedigger.
While in the morgue, Petty takes home a corpse played by Kim Basinger. When he gets her home, he puts her in a wedding dance and dances around a candlelit room with her. After a while, he decides to get rid of her by throwing her into the ocean. In a twist ending, she opens her eyes as she sinks into the water.
In an interview with Billboard, Petty said of the video, “She’s got to look really good, or why would he keep her around after she’s dead? I thought, ‘Kim Basinger would be good. I’d probably keep her for a day or two, let’s go see if she would do it.’ You can make a joke about it, but you have to act a bit to be dead. It’s not easy.”
Now you know the tales being told. 🙂
I’ve always related to the song because when I was in HS, Gainesville wasn’t an exciting place for a teenager. To me there was nothing to do. (It has since changed A LOT!)
“I feel summer creeping in
And I’m tired of this town again
Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told
You never slow down, you never grow old
I’m tired of screwing up, tired of going down
Tired of myself, tired of this town.”
I also thought of Mary Jane as a reference to marijuana because Gainesville, even back then, had a lot of pot, especially in that it is a college town. It wasn’t my jam, but it was there if someone wanted it.
When I watched the video, I couldn’t get over how much Tom looked like his father, who I have met a few times when visiting family at the old homestead. The video is bizarre though, and think one viewing is enough for me.
Oh, and as a close, we got to see TPHB perform a show his last year here in Indiana. When they played MJ’s Last Dance, the crowd went CRAZY!! I have since heard it referred to as the national anthem of the state of Indiana. 😆
Cool. Thankd.
So, you knew Tom Petty personally?
No problem. 🙂👍
Hassan bought a rocking chair that once belonged to Democratic icon John F. Kennedy for nearly $100,00 at auction.
That zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound is the reel on the rod going for the BIG fish.
No. I’ve never met him, but his Dad and my Dad were friends later in their lives. So when I would go home to visit my parents he was sometimes there.
Shotglass of warm spit.
So close, and yet so far. 🙂👍
Exactly. The circles are there, but never got on the inside of them. Probably as it should be.
Huynh — sounds like a character out of Gulliver’s Travels.
“He needs to up his game, there’s a ton of redeeming that needs to be done.”
Apparently.
Welcome Allison Huynh = welcome home.
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