Mary Jane in Context (Marijuana)

The four lines of the refrain are as follows:

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

My argument is that in this situation "Mary Jane" does not refer to a woman but to marijuana. Mary Jane is among the many cultural names for marijuana used in the second half of the twentieth century including pot, weed, hash, and others.

The narrator in the lyrics then engages in one last "dance" with marijuana "to kill the pain." This reference to the numbing effects of "Mary Jane" is a more apt description of a narcotic then of one physical dance with a woman.

Physically dancing would be much more likely to produce feelings of nostalgia or euphoria, rather than the deadening sensation the narrator is referring to in the second line of the refrain.

The argument for reading "Mary Jane" as marijuana is furthered by the final two lines of the refrain where the narrator says he "feel[s] summer creepin in and I'm/ tired of this town again." In this case the narrator is painting a setting where drug usage is an easily understood escape. Tedium, boredom (in this case tiredness) and a feeling of inability to escape social or financial circumstances are often noted as markers of habitual drug users, or at least markers of why they moved from recreational users to habitual users. The feeling of inescapability is particularly noticeable in the line "I feel summer creepin in." Summer holds no promise for the narrator, instead it creeps up on him and traps him in "this town again."