This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
She lived on a curve in the road, in an old tar-paper shack
On the south side of the town, on the wrong side of the tracks
Sometimes on the way into town we'd say:
"Mama, can we stop and give her a ride?"
Sometimes we did but her hands flew from her side
Wild eyed, crazy Mary
Down along the road, past the Parson's place
The old blue car we used to race
Little country store with a sign tacked to the side
Said "No L-O-I-T-E-are-I-N-G allowed"
Underneath that sign always congregated quite a crowd
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
One night thunder cracked mercy backed outside her windowsill
Dreamed I was flying high above the trees, over the hills
Looked down into the house of Mary
Bare bulb on, newspaper-covered walls, and Mary rising up above it all
Next morning on the way into town
Saw some skid marks, and followed them around
Over the curve, through the fields, into the house of Mary
That what you fear the most, could meet you halfway
That what you fear the most, could meet you halfway
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
On the south side of the town, on the wrong side of the tracks
Sometimes on the way into town we'd say:
"Mama, can we stop and give her a ride?"
Sometimes we did but her hands flew from her side
Wild eyed, crazy Mary
Down along the road, past the Parson's place
The old blue car we used to race
Little country store with a sign tacked to the side
Said "No L-O-I-T-E-are-I-N-G allowed"
Underneath that sign always congregated quite a crowd
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
One night thunder cracked mercy backed outside her windowsill
Dreamed I was flying high above the trees, over the hills
Looked down into the house of Mary
Bare bulb on, newspaper-covered walls, and Mary rising up above it all
Next morning on the way into town
Saw some skid marks, and followed them around
Over the curve, through the fields, into the house of Mary
That what you fear the most, could meet you halfway
That what you fear the most, could meet you halfway
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Lyrics submitted by planetearth
Crazy Mary Lyrics as written by Victoria Ann Williams
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I created an account solely to write this comment, because I believe you do Victoria a great injustice in implying that she was incapable of performing this song.
Victoria Williams did, in fact, perform this song, and even recorded a music video for it (you can find it at YouTube). Pearl Jam covered this song originally in a tribute album to Victoria Williams after it was discovered that she had MS, being one of many high profile acts to cover her songs for the album. Victoria was capable of performing in the 90's when this song was written, and she still can and does perform to this day.
I like Victoria's performance a little bit more than Pearl Jam's. Although I admit that I knew the Pearl Jam version first, because I had the Sweet Relief album before I knew any of the V.W. versions. That album actually introduced me to several of my favorite musicians -- Lucinda Williams, Maria McKee, and the Jayhawks. I kind of miss the days of meaningful compilation albums that could expose you to something you didn't already know about.
A brilliant and captivating story filled with memorable lines. The Pearl Jam version is cool but I like this so much more to Victoria's wacky personality, range, and playfulness.
I understand these lyrics to mean that an angry, drunken mob (who'd gathered underneath that sign), drove out to the "house of Mary" and terrorized her. The author's dream occurred when Mary died as a result, and "rose above it all."
It's the heartbreaking story of how people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities are misunderstood, and then feared, and then vilified, just as Boo Radley was in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
I think "That what you fear the most could meet you halfway" refers to the drunken mob giving into their own inner demons. They saw "Crazy Mary" as different, strange, to be reviled, to be feared. As they "passed the bottle around," they bought into a group-think mentality that "something must be done about her." or "let's go to Mary's house and raise Hell." And she didn't survive their assault on her.
It's a song about the tragedy of human cruelty toward people who are seen as different.
This song is actually about a crazy drunk woman who was killed when a car crashed through her paper shack, and Victoria wrote this song about stereotyping elderly single women living near poverty, but she suffered from multiple sclerosis, so Pearl Jam Sung it for her.