Mary Jane's Last Dance

One more time to kill the pain

SONG: Mary Jane’s Last Dance

ARTIST: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

ALBUM: Greatest Hits

YEAR: 1993

I spent an hour tryng to come up with an opening for this piece. Where does one begin with a legendary artist who sold over 80 million records, who penned multiple hits over four prolific decades, and who left the arena far too early at the age of 66?

The point is this: Tom Petty has nourished my soul ever since I was a pimply-faced teenager.

I loved his music and rock ‘n’ roll resilience, his determination to remain authentic despite the countless industry weasels who tried to suck the artistry out of him.

There used to be a time when I’d hear Tom Petty’s defiant voice every single day. Epecially between 1989 and 1996, when I feasted on a steady diet of Full Moon Fever, Into the Great Wide Open, and the mesmerizing Wildflowers. I listened to Tom Petty so often, in fact, that I began to notice his music bleeding into my so-called life:   

• I kissed my first American girl to American Girl.

• I got punched in the face during a fight in a bar to You Don’t Know How it Feels.

• I was pulled over for speeding, one young and careless night, with today’s selection in the Gen X Jukebox blasting through my Blaupunkts.

Mary Jane’s Last Dance was written and recorded while Petty was working on the aforementioned Wildflowers with famed producer Rick Rubin. The song was included on the Greatest Hits album which was released in 1993. It reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks for two weeks straight.  

The groovy riff and dreamy chorus, punctuated by a harmonica that shoots your heart into the stratosphere, make this song—to my mind, anyway—one of Petty’s finest. No mean feat, given his astonishing body of work.

There’s also the great, if macabre, music video that accompanies the song.

Tom Petty plays a morgue assistant who becomes enamored with a beautiful corpse. The corpse, of course, belongs to none other than the great Kim Basinger. Petty sneaks Basinger out of the morgue and drives her back to his place. He dolls her up in a wedding dress, slaps a coat of lipstick on her, and dances her weightless body around like a perfect little gentleman. When Tom’s finished, he carries Kimmy out to sea and lays her down in the surging waters. You know: just an Indiana boy on an Indiana night.

I don’t know, but I’ve been told: you listen to Tom Petty, you never grow old. So put on your favorite party dress and let’s kill the pain together. This may be Mary Jane’s last dance, but it sure as shit ain’t ours.