TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS – Mary Jane’s Last Dance (1993)

“Mary Jane’s Last Dance” is a song written by Tom Petty & 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 and No. 5 in Canada.

The music video for the song features Petty as a morgue assistant who takes home a beautiful dead woman (played by Kim Basinger). 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.

She grew up in an Indiana town Had a good lookin’ mama who never was around But she grew up tall and she grew up right With them Indiana boys on an Indiana night

Well, she moved down here at the age of eighteen She blew the boys away, it was more than they’d seen I was introduced and we both started groovin’ She said, “I dig you, baby, but I got to keep movin’ on, keep movin’ on”

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

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 goin’ down Tired of myself, tired of this town Oh, my, my, oh, hell yes Honey, put on that party dress Buy me a drink, sing me a song Take me as I come ’cause I can’t stay long

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

There’s pigeons down on Market Square She’s standin’ in her underwear Lookin’ down from a hotel room The nightfall will be comin’ soon Oh, my, my, oh, hell yes You’ve got to put on that party dress It was too cold to cry when I woke up alone I hit the last number, I walked to the road

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