
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. “I’ve had a pipeline of marijuana since 1967.”Ĭampbell offered his two cents on the lyrics saying, “My take on it is it can be whatever you want it to be. It’s a musical drug,” Petty told Men’s Journal in 2014. In a 2020 interview with Vulture, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell explained why he feels 'Mary Janes Last Dance' is the bands most 'misunderstood' song. With Petty publicly announcing his affinity for the drug, this meaning seems to hold more weight. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Mary Janes Last Dance (Letra e msica para ouvir) - She grew up in an Indiana town / Had a good-lookin mama who never. Throughout the song, he talks of “killing the pain” with Mary Jane and using her to leave his tired old town for a while. What is the duration of Mary Janes Last Dance The duration of the song Mary Janes Last. I feel summer creepin’ in and I’m tired of this town again Mary Janes Last Dance is sung by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. 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.Īnother, 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. 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.” 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. He continued, “Tom was singing the chorus, and he decided he just couldn’t get behind singing about Hey, Indiana Girl. “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.” In an interview with Songfacts, Campbell explained how the song came together.

The basic riff for the song had been swirling around in writing sessions for a while but had never found a permanent home. 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.
