Mary Jane’s Last Dance | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: Am G | (Dsus2) D Am |
| Am7 G | (Dsus2) D Am :||
Verse 1
||: Am G | (Dsus2) D Am :||
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.
Instrumental 1
||: Am G | (Dsus2) D Am :||
Woo oh-oh-ooh.
Woo oh-oh-ooh.
Verse 2
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’.
Instrumental 2
On, keep movin’ on.
Chorus 1
| Em | Em7 | A (A6) | A (A6) |
Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain.
| Em | Em7 | A (A6) | G |
I feel summer creepin’ in and I’m tired of this town again.
Instrumental 3
Woo oh-oh-ooh.
Woo oh-oh-ooh.
Verse 3
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.
Chorus 2
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.
Solo
||: Am G | (Dsus2) D Am |
| Am7 G | (Dsus2) D Am :||
Verse 4
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.
Chorus 3
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.
Outro
||: Am G | (Dsus2) D Am |
| Am7 G | (Dsus2) D Am :|| to fade
Mary Jane’s Last Dance Chords: Learn the progressions
To play along with the original recording, you need to tune your guitar up 10 Hz from 440. Use my online guitar tuner to achieve this, and set it to 450 Hz.
As the chords are simple open-position chords, start playing along. After all, the verse chords are just II – I – V on repeat in the key of G, like this:
||: Am (II) G (I) | (Dsus2) D (V) Am :||
The chorus is in the key of D, moving II – V, and then finishing on IV, like this:
| Em (II) | Em7 | A (V) (A6) | A (A6) |
| Em | Em7 | A (A6) | G (IV) |
Using two neighbouring keys like G and D (only one note change, C to C#) is common, it gives a tune tension.
After playing Mary Jane’s Last Dance chords for a while, you’ll realize that there are two guitars and that Tom Petty and Mike Campbell are no rookies at crafting seemingly simple guitar parts.
If you want to get better at writing guitar parts for hits, I find it difficult to recommend anyone better than Tom and Mike to study. Maybe Angus and Malcolm as well but that’s about it.
However, most likely you’ll be the only guitarist in a band and then another skill is necessary to develop; how to combine two great parts into one.
To get you going, there’s now TAB available for how I would suggest you combine what Tom and Mike play into one guitar part that works in a band.
Here’s a link to that part of the lesson: Mary Jane’s Last Dance – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
After studying the TAB, you can start to improvise by making small adjustments, this will make the part feel more alive and less static.
At this stage, you only need a chord chart. Here’s one I made for you.
Mary Jane’s Last Dance Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Mary Jane’s Last Dance Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Mary Jane’s Last Dance iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Mary Jane’s Last Dance was Tom Petty’s last big hit!
When Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released their Greatest Hits album, where we find Mary Jane’s Last Dance as the only new tune, it was 1993 and they had briefly united.
As a band, this was their last big tune and incidentally one of my absolute favourites.
Following the Greatest Hits, Tom set out to make his second solo album, Wildflowers (1994), by many seen as his ultimate masterpiece (including myself).
However, Wildflowers didn’t have any obvious radio hits like we’ve gotten used to during the ’80s and early ’90s.
After Wildflowers, he would continue to release more albums and even though they are sonic masterpieces and there are several really cool tunes, Mary Jane’s Last Dance really was his and the band’s last big hit.
Mary Jane’s Last Dance Chords | Related Pages
Mary Jane’s Last Dance | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play Mary Jane’s Last Dance by Tom Petty using TAB and chord analysis.
| Am G | (Dsus2) D Am |
She grew up in an Indiana town…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Come Together
- Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me In Its Spotlight)
- The Joker
- Into The Great Wide Open
- Man On The Moon
Tom Petty tunes
Tom Petty released most of his albums with his band The Heartbreakers although some solo material appeared as well.
His best-known tunes include American Girl, Free Fallin’, Learning To Fly, Into The Great Wide Open, Don’t Come Around Here No More, and I Won’t Back Down.
Tom Petty on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Mary Jane’s Last Dance chords, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
