Roll of the Dice: Mary Queen of Arkansas

In the early days of 1972, Vanessa Redgrave’s latest film garnered a slew of Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. The film, Mary, Queen of Scots, was a historically questionable tale of sexual misadventure and political intrigue, and while it didn’t take home any awards that year, it did inspire what is widely (and IMO unfairly) considered to be Bruce Springsteen’s worst-ever song.

“Mary Queen of Arkansas” was one of four songs that Bruce played for John Hammond during their very first meeting in Hammond’s Columbia Records office on May 2, 1972 (just a few weeks after the film that inspired it lost in all five of its Academy Award-nominated categories) and the only one with which Hammond was singularly unimpressed, calling the song “pretentious.”

Nevertheless, Bruce was enamored of “Mary,” and it was the first song he recorded with Hammond at Columbia the following day. His first attempt was a warm-up; it’s never been released, but you can hear it below.

The second take was a keeper, though, and Bruce would release it more than a quarter-century later on Tracks.

And despite the attempts of almost everyone around him to dissuade him, Bruce recorded a more polished take of “Mary Queen of Arkansas” and insisted it appear on his first album.

Listening to both the demo and official recordings, one thing is clear: Hammond wasn’t wrong. “Mary Queen of Arkansas” is pretentious by nearly any estimation.

But like the saying goes, sometimes you have to fake it ’til you make it, and more than any other song on Bruce’s first album, “Mary Queen of Arkansas” foreshadows the kind of deeply empathic first-person fiction that would someday become a trademark.

We’ll delve into the themes and lyrics of “Mary Queen of Arkansas,” but it’s worth taking a moment first to appreciate the music. Much has been written about Bruce’s lugubrious (one critic called it “turgid”) melody, and it’s fair criticism.

But what’s most striking about “Mary” is the cinematic soundtrack underneath it: Bruce’s harmonica makes no attempt to follow the melody but instead paints a vivid picture of a lazy, sun-drenched bedroom where one lover lies in repose and the other in contemplation. Bruce also introduces the song with a Latin, almost flamenco guitar introduction that suggests we have joined our lovers post-coitus.

The effect is both subtle and breathtaking, and it’s all the more impressive when we take a moment to realize and appreciate that this is an entirely solo arrangement and performance. Melody aside, “Mary Queen of Arkansas” is the musical high-water mark of Bruce’s first album.

Now, about those lyrics…

Mary, Queen of Arkansas, it’s not too early for dreamin’
The sky is grown with cloud seed sown, and a bastard’s love can be redeeming
Mary, my queen, your soft hulk is reviving
No, you’re not too late to desecrate, the servants are just rising

Look, there’s no way around acknowledging that this was not Bruce at his most enlightened.

The central conceit of “Mary Queen of Arkansas” is the double-meaning of the word “queen.” Yes, Bruce ascribes Mary her royal title in part to reflect how enamored his narrator is of her, but he’s also writing about a “drag queen” and likely applying that term inexactly if not incorrectly.

Mary is almost certainly transgender. Bruce has referred to her as a transvestite, but his lyrics strongly suggest some conflation or confusion in that regard. Either way, it’s clear that our narrator is in love with a woman whose gender identification doesn’t match her gender assignment at birth.

And in 1972, that was not the makings of a socially acceptable romantic relationship.

Our narrator doesn’t seem to live within the social mainstream, either–he refers to himself as a bastard, a circus performer, and a pauper, in marked contrast to Mary, who by implication is more financially well off (she has servants, after all):

Well, I’m just a lonely acrobat, the live wire is my trade
I’ve been a shine boy for your acid brat and a wharf rat of your state
Mary, my queen, your blows for freedom are missing
You’re not man enough for me to hate or woman enough for kissing

Many critics take Bruce’s liberal use of circus imagery literally, suggesting that the lovers are actual performers. I don’t think that’s true at all–rather, I think Bruce uses the circus as metaphor, a way of establishing his lovers as societal outcasts, or “freaks.” (It’s likely, though, that Bruce was taken enough with his circus setting to spawn an additional, more literal song for his follow-up album.)

(Side note: Bruce’s earlier demo version includes a different line in lieu of the “shine boy” reference: I’ve been a change man at your laundromat. I think that’s actually a stronger lyric.)

That verse’s last line, though, makes it clear that the narrator has a bit of a self-acceptance issue as well. He’s clearly ill at ease about Mary’s non-traditional gender status and confused about his attraction to her. He’s also well aware that if they pursue their relationship in their intolerant community, things are not going to end well:

The big top is for dreamers, we can take the circus all the way to the border
And the gallows wait for martyrs whose papers are in order
But I was not born to live to die and you were not born for queenin’
It’s not too late to infiltrate, the servants are just leavin’

Mary, Queen of Arkansas, your white skin is deceivin’
You wake and wait to lie in bait and you almost got me believin’
But on your bed, Mary, I can see the shadow of a noose
I don’t understand how you can hold me so tight and love me so damn loose

These two verses are filled with ominous imagery of gallows, martyrs, a noose. (It’s worth noting that Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded, almost certainly not a coincidental parallel.) If our lovers are to have any chance at a life together, they’re going to have to find a place more accepting.

(Another side note: I’ve read suggestions that this is an inter-racial, pre-Civil Rights era relationship as well, based on Bruce’s explicit reference to Mary’s white skin, references to servants and suggestions of lynching. I think that’s probably too careful a read, and I don’t think Bruce would over-complicate his story like that, but it’s a plausible interpretation.)

But it’s that last line that always stops me in my tracks–chronologically speaking, it’s Bruce’s first gobsmackingly brilliant lyric: I don’t understand how you can hold me so tight and love me so damn loose.

That line resonates universally: who among us hasn’t felt that way in a relationship at one point or another?

As the song reaches its close, our narrator is desperate to flee with Mary, to escape someplace far away where they can start a new life free of judgment:

But I know a place where we can go, Mary
Where I can get a good job and start out all over again clean
Oh, I got contacts deep in Mexico where the servants have been seen

Bruce leaves his story unresolved, but we sense that Mary is not up for running away. There’s no indication at any point in the song that Mary is anything less than comfortable in her own skin, and in fact while our narrator has visions of impending doom, Mary simply lies in wait and seduction for her suitor. That “hold me so tight/love me so loose” line is an expression of frustration: if you love me, Mary, why won’t you run away with me?

“Mary Queen of Arkansas” is a heck of a feat for a 22-year-old small-town songwriter, and Bruce had good reason to be proud of it.

But his fans never loved it anywhere near as much as he did, so it appeared only infrequently in concert in the year or so following its release. One of Mary’s earliest appearances was at Bruce’s show at Max’s Kansas City, only a few weeks after the release of Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Danny Federici’s accordion substitutes for Bruce’s harmonica, but the effect is not quite as effective.

Mary vanished from the scene in 1974; the next time she surfaced was a quarter-century later on the Reunion Tour, when Bruce and the E Street Band stopped in Little Rock. (Had Bruce not always been a sucker for songs that namechecked the towns he played in, Mary might have gone missing for longer still.)

“Mary Queen of Arkansas” made three appearances on the Reunion Tour, the last of which was captured on video in fine quality.

But it was Bruce’s one-off performance at the closing show of the Working on a Dream Tour (as part of a full-album performance of Greetings) that proved to be his definitive live rendition. Featuring Nils Lofgren on harmonica(!), it’s the only time Bruce has performed “Mary Queen of Arkansas” in its original arrangement.

Mary has made only one appearance since, during a solo mini-set in Pittsburgh in 2014 (where Bruce admitted to the song’s theme for the first time).

It’s almost impossible to predict whether she’ll make a return appearance–she’s never been a fan favorite and is an incredibly long shot for a sign request. And yet, Bruce never quite seems to forget about her.

I suspect he still holds her in higher esteem than most of his listeners do.

Mary Queen of Arkansas
Recorded: June 26-27, 1972
Released: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
First performed: May 2, 1972 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: May 22, 2014 (Pittsburgh, PA)

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