The Wind Cries Mary

Jimi had a fight with his girlfriend and while she was he wrote the song using her middle name mary and he then recorded it in a recording sesson that night

"The tiny island sags downstream" is probably that deflated sadness of loss and also that erogenous zone. He is not feeling very potent, at this time. A very sensitive metaphor. Happyness staggers- drunk? Footsteps dressed in Red- No happyness is not drunk its stabbed and bleeding and thats why it staggers. This is particular because Red shoes are typically womens and happyness has been killed from loss of a woman. This guy is a total poet genius. The solo is great a sad lullaby but unmistakably hendrix.

I believe this song could be about a little girl down/across the street who got hit by a car. Someone mentioned that to me and it seemed reasonable. Open your mind to the idea.

<i>After all the jacks are in their boxes, and the clowns have all gone to bed, you can hear happiness staggering on down the street, footprints dress in red.

And the wind whispers Mary.

A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life. Somewhere a Queen is weeping, somewhere a King has no wife.

And the wind it cries Mary.

The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow And shine their emptiness down on my bed, The tiny island sags downstream 'Cos the life that they lived is dead.

And the wind screams Mary.

Will the wind ever remember The names it has blown in the past, And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom It whispers, "No, this will be the last."

And The Wind Cries Mary.</i>

Either way you look at it, it's a beautiful song and Jimi Hendrix is amazing.<3

Part 1: Boy meets girl, party late at night, she has "footprints dressed in red" cute red shoes...

Part 2: Their relation ship ends in sadness. She weeps, he is now alone.

Part 3: "The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow" is a positive pregnancy test. "The tiny island sags downstream 'Cos the life that they lived is dead." She has an abortion.

Part 4 is about his own regrets...

I believe the lyrics of this song are multilayered and can also be interpreted in a multitude of ways, but I will try to break them down how they seem to work imho:

"After all the jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed"

The jacks (pieces of the children's game, jacks) are put away because the players grew tired of playing. The game of jacks is the game people play in life to be the "best" or the "winner" (such as war), regardless of who loses in their wake. The players are the clowns, though, because they, themselves, eventually lose and just go to bed (or even die).

"You can hear happiness staggering on down the street footprints dressed in red"

So when the game ends, the people whose voices are heard are those left in the wake who were not playing the game. And they continue happily on the path of righteousness, although staggering. Their blood can be seen in their footprints while they still walk the path. They are visibly harmed, but do not divert.

"And the wind whispers Mary"

"Mary" is Mary of Bethany from the Bible. (Mary walked the path of peace and faith, in contrast to her sister Martha, who lived in selfishness and doubt.) Hence, the wind now quietly speaks her name, the wind being the age or the times.

"A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life"

Those who are left after the fighting try to pick up the pieces of their destroyed way of life.

"Somewhere a queen is weeping Somewhere a king has no wife"

The queen is sad because the man she married is not the great man she believed he was. He was only a malevolent leader orchestrating senseless fighting for his own gain. She leaves him after the fighting because he has nothing left to offer her.

"And the wind, it cries Mary"

The people who played and lost the game, like the king and queen, have lost almost everything. So the wind is louder now, crying for change.

"The traffic lights, they turn up blue tomorrow and shine their emptiness down on my bed"

The traffic lights are the old leaders, like the king and queen, who used to tell you when to go and when to stop. People followed their directions because it got them to where they were headed. But now, the traffic lights are turned blue (sad because they lost their power). Those who followed the traffic lights are now also blue because they have no direction for the future. Even the narrator is awoken by the empty blue.

"The tiny island sags downstream 'cause the life that lived is, is dead"

The great kingdom that was is now only a "tiny island." It is isolated and all the pieces that are left fall apart without its surrounding structure. The old society that once thrived is now totally dead.

"And the wind screams Mary"

The wind is so loud now, that it cannot be ignored.

"Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past?"

The narrator questions whether the wind will consider the names it has blown before, such as kings' names, or perhaps Martha's name.

"And with this crutch, its old age, and its wisdom it whispers no, this will be the last"

The wise, old, wind now has Mary as its crutch to keep on flowing while the people get together to repair and build a better place to live in. The wind whispers to the narrator (so the people don't hear and become complacent) that this is the last name that needs to be blown. The people finally recognize the error of their ways.

"And the wind cries Mary"

The wind calms a bit but still cries Mary for the stragglers. Perhaps later the wind will quiet down and no longer need to blow Mary's name, when the people realize their happiness and harmony depend on their own actions.

My interpretation of this song has evolved a bit over the 20 or so years that I've held it as a favorite. Heres my take:

First verse

I always thought the jacks were playing cards (maybe because of the mention of kings and queens later on). And the clowns are people who find happiness in a bottle and maybe sit around gambling and wasting time. Happiness has been personified and is drunkenly staggering off to find another party, leaving a trail of sex and violence, evoked by the color red. Imagine a smokey room full of drugs and booze and probably women and just being depressed because all you can think about are all of your ex girlfriends and bad breakups.

I think the wind is your subconscious mind, always sort of making sure you're thinking about what's important, even if its a painful memory, cause you know you have to deal with fears and doubts to really be happy. So his mind just whispers this girls name, could be any name, but Mary sounds nice and peaceful. She is a specific girl, maybe the one he still loves or the one who hurt him the most.

Second verse

Basically the depressing stage where you might have to literally clean up your house after a drunken rage fest. But then the first step to getting better when you come to the comforting realization that even kings and queens, who can represent any powerful or desireable or beautiful people, can be lonely and heartbroken and that what you feel is painful but it sort of connects you with humanity. But then that ONE girl keeps popping into your brain and now the wind seems to yell because all the other thoughts are gone so this one is louder.

Third verse

He's become withdrawn and the world is upside down and he doesn't know what to expect. Traffic lights would never turn blue, but he's at the point where he wouldn't even be surprised because all he can think about is that ONE girl whose memmories are now screaming in his head. And so he just slumps his shoulders and closes up and plods on, the island sagging in the stream of life.

Fourth verse

Its about realizing that you have to let go and move on. Realizing that all of the depression and the bad relationships and the loneliness are because you still feel brokenhearted about that one girl and that makes you feel like a victim sorta so thats a crutch and you'll never improve yourself. And now the wind is weeping catharticly because despite everyrhing, Mary made you realize it was time to let go, move on and be happy.

Jimi was the greatest!

Most songs are open to varied interpretation. Wild deviations from the writer's intent might make some sense, though they often require particularly agile and poorly-aimed leaps of imagination: for example, this song does not, did not, will not, never has, and never will have anything to do with religion. Jimi himself insisted that the use of the name 'Mary' had nothing to do with the Biblical character who shared that name, but then - as now - people who interpret everything in a religious context said he must have using the name 'unconsciously', insisting that because they see everything in Biblical terms, there is no way Jimi could not have seen it that way.

But Jimi, his girlfriend (whose middle name was 'Mary'), his manager, his producer, and his drummer all said that the song was inspired by Jimi's break-up with then-girlfriend Kathleen Mary Etchingham, but about the pattern of failed relationships Jimi left in his wake, and the question of whether anything had been learned, or would he continue to do the same things that caused the list of breakups? The lyrics imply, somewhat heavily, that the answer is no, that there is more pain to come. He wants things to be better, but he hasn't grown up enough to prevent the same things from happening.

The symbolism people are finding in this song - Biblical references, social commentary about the 60s, abortion, drugs, whatever - is fascinating. But believing what you believe is one thing; believing that what you believe is true, even in the face of conflicting evidence, is a completely different, and somewhat unsupportable, proposition.

Beautiful, but very sad. Like many Hendrix songs.

Jimi wrote this in 1967 for Are You Experienced?; it was inspired by his girlfriend at the time, Kathy Mary Etchingham. He\'d gotten into an argument with her about her cooking. She got very angry and started throwing pots and pans and finally stormed out to stay at a friend\'s home for a day or so. When she came back, Jimi had written "The Wind Cries Mary" for her.\n\nKathy Mary recalled, "We\'d had a row over food. Jimi didn\'t like lumpy mashed potato. There were thrown plates and I ran off. When I came back the next day, he\'d written that song about me. It\'s incredibly flattering." (Source Q magazine February 2013)\nJimi wrote the song quietly in his apartment and didn\'t show it to anybody. After recording "Fire" (which was about his sexual relationship with Kathy), he had 20 minutes to spare in the recording studio, so he showed it to the band. They managed to record it in the 20 minute period they had. The band later recorded several more takes of the song, but they all seemed very sterile and they decided to go with the original recording.\n\nsource: songfacts.com/facts/jimi-hendrix/the-wind-cries-mary

what is this about???? little help please!

It's about longinf for someone, "After all the jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed." the longing for this person will not fade and mary will always linger in his ear but as the wind blow away so will the thoughts mary.