Watch Lou Reed join Victoria Williams for a sizzling performance of ‘Wild Mary’
If you want to know what it might have sounded like if Coney Island Baby era Lou Reed had written ‘Crazy Mary’, this video is for you. Back in the early 1990s, Reed joined Victoria Williams to deliver this stunning rendition of one of Pearl Jam’s most atmospheric songs.
Originally composed by Williams, ‘Crazy Mary’ was first released by Pearl Jam back in 1993. It formed part of Sweet Relief – A Benefit for Victoria Williams, an album put together to help pay William’s medical bills. In 1992, she’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just as her music career started taking off. She didn’t have health insurance, so artists like Maria McKee, Lou Reed, Dave Priner, Lucinda Williams and Pearl Jam decided to band together and put out an album to raise funds for treatment. ‘Crazy Mary’ was later released on Williams’ 1994 album Loose.
The song tells the story of an eccentric local called Mary who lives “on the curve in the road in an old tar paper shack / On the south side of the town on the wrong side of the tracks.” She’s a fixture of the local community and is often seen wandering around town. Sometimes, local children even turn to their mothers and ask, “Mama can we stop and give her a ride?” Of course, Mary being something of a loon, they always refuse, thinking she’ll always be around. Then one day, a car drives into her shack and suddenly Crazy Mary is gone.
Nestled somewhere between John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Marquee Moon-era Television, and Courtney Love’s work with Hole, it’s a brilliant piece of songwriting. Here Lou Reed offers up his frequently underplayed guitar skills as Williams delivers her signature country drawl. “Take a bottle drink it down,” they sing in the chorus, trading lines, “Pass it around / Take a bottle drink it down. Pass it… Pass it around.”
‘Crazy Mary’ simmers with life but, speaking to Songfacts, Williams called the song “a fantasy I suppose I made up out of some facts… a very old black lady, she used to walk into Shreveport but would never get inside a moving automobile. One day, she met her demise when a car went out of control and slammed into her shack. That which you fear most can meet you half way.”
