Mary Jane's Last Dance


"Mary Jane's Last Dance" is a song written by Tom Petty and recorded by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was recorded while Petty was recording his Wildflowers album and was produced by Rick Rubin, guitarist Mike Campbell, and Petty. The sessions would prove to be the last to include drummer Stan Lynch before his eventual departure in 1994. This song was first released as part of the Greatest Hits album in 1993. It rose to No. 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Petty's first Billboard top-20 hit of the 1990s, and also topped the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart for two weeks. Internationally, the song reached No. 2 in Portugal, No. 5 in Canada and No. 7 in Iceland.

Content

Asked if the song was about drugs, Heartbreaker guitarist Mike Campbell said, "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. 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." In the rest of the interview, Campbell said that the song was originally titled "Indiana Girl" and the first chorus began, "Hey, Indiana Girl, go out and find the world." He added that Petty "just couldn't get behind singing about 'hey, Indiana Girl,'" so he changed the chorus a week later.

Critical reception

Alan Jones from Music Week gave the song three out of five, writing, "A Dylan-like delivery, a harmonica solo for good measure and some Beatles harmonies are all present and correct here. Another Top 40 hit for Petty."

Music video

The music video for the song features Petty as a morgue assistant who takes home a beautiful dead woman. He then acts as if she were alive, putting her in front of a television set and then dressing her as a bride, sitting her at the dinner table and dancing with her. A scene in the video featuring the dead woman wearing a wedding dress in a room full of wax candles is loosely based on a passage from the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. The plot also has similarities with the 1970 Charles Bukowski short story "The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California", which had already inspired the 1987 Belgian film Crazy Love and the 1991 French film Cold Moon.
Later, Petty is shown carrying her to a rocky shore and gently releasing her into the sea. At the end of the video, the woman floats to the surface and opens her eyes.
The video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video in 1994.

Plagiarism allegations

In 2006, a US radio station claimed that Red Hot Chili Peppers hit single, "Dani California" had plagiarized "Mary Jane's Last Dance", even calling for Petty to sue the band. Longtime Petty and Chili Peppers producer Rick Rubin produced both songs. Petty responded by saying that he was not going to sue the Chili Peppers and felt that there was no negative intent and that a lot of rock and roll songs sound alike.

Personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Chart Position
US Hot Rock Songs 78