Mary Jane's Last Dance Guitar Lesson - Learn to Play Like Tom Petty!

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. And we are going to be going over Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance. I just learned today that it's not called Last Dance at Mary Jane, which I've been calling it almost my entire life. So I learned today that it's Mary Jane's Last Dance. It has this really, really cool intro. We're not going to be keeping this to an absolute beginner level, but fortunately we do only have open chords. We're operating within this song, which is a G chord, a D chord, A DSUs 2 chord, A minor, E minor 7 and an A major chord. Now, the intricate part about this is not the chords. And I'll show you how you can keep this simple if you wanted to play it simply. But I am going to get into some of the intricacies, particularly the intro section of this song that has some really cool hammer ons and we're going to start right there. So the intro of this song is all split measures. This, this song, every chord except I think in the chorus are two beats. Okay, so it's going to be an A minor, a G chord, a D chord or DSUS chord, an A minor. So it's going to sound like this.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, 3, Four. 1, 2, 3, FOUR.

All right, so you can hear it's already sounding kind of a bit like, you know, Mary Jane's Last dance.

Okay. And again, you just want to make a note. I know I have this PRS in my hands. You don't have to play this on electric. You could play it on acoustic. I just wanted to try out the guitar today. So that's really nice that we're doing it with this, with this tune. It's such a cool tune. So what we're going to do is we're going to spice this up a little bit. Okay. So you know, instead of just doing.

1, 2, 1 2, 1 2, it's.

Going to sound more like this.

Okay. So there's a little bit more movement going on than just a couple of down strums here and there. So let's start off with the first chord which is A minor. Okay, so this is a four measure intro. We're kind of doing a couple different things. Fortunately, once you learn the first two measures, it is a little bit repetitive. So we have this hammer onto A minor. So we're strumming the guitar open.

And then I'm hammering my A minor on top of it. Now I'm not catching all of the Strings. Okay. I'm trying to catch kind of like the middle strings of the chord. Okay, so it's 1E2.

Okay. 1e2 is the timing.

Bottom thumb, bottom thumb, bottom thumb, bottom thumb, bottom thump, bottom thump.

Okay. And you can throw that in throughout the song. Really, really cool thing. Really nice use of a hammer on there. So we've got one E2, and then it's going to be a three E and four. And, okay, we're not going to switch chords yet. I just want you to get the rhythm with this A minor.

So it's going to be 1E, 2A, 3E and 4.

And. Okay. And that's going to be played down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, down.

Down, down, down, up.

Down, up, down, down, down.

Okay, so what we're going to do in the middle of this is we're going to switch over to a G chord. Now, you might notice on the tab there are some single notes. If you can catch the single notes. Great. It'll sound just a little bit more. It'll sound a little bit more like the song, but at this stage of the game, I would just recommend strumming through it. So it's going to be the same pattern, except on the up after three, we're going to switch to a G chord. Okay, so.

Okay, so that was just me hitting and strumming a G chord. Okay. It does sound nice if you can target that bass note on the G. And that's on the. And four.

And you do hear that.

If you listen to the song, you do hear that coming through. But again, for right now, I would just focus on getting the strumming pattern down. Let's try that again.

So it's 1, 2, 3, E and 4M.

All right, so that's just our first measure. All right. A lot going on there, but super, super cool. And if you're having trouble with the strumming and the rhythm, just pause, break it up, go very slow, sing it if you have to.

1, 2, a, 3, e and 4. And 1, 2, a 3e and 4. And 1, 2, a 3e and 4. And one, two.

Okay. Sometimes singing things without playing the guitar can help you lock in the rhythm better. Next measure, we have another hammer on. Coming in, we're starting on a D suspended chord instead of an A minor, but same timing.

So it's 1E, 1E.

And then the two is going to be a D chord.

Okay. And I would try to keep the same rhythm as much as possible back into The A minor chord. So we're going to have.

Okay, so I'm trying to switch that A minor and keep the same rhythm almost that I played before. Now again, when I go and play this live, I'm probably going to improvise a little bit. But we have one E2. Okay. And then we're going to do a.

Three E and.

Okay. And again I'm going to switch on that E to the A minor and then four. And okay. On this one, it's noted as four and A. Okay. You might do four and you might do four and A. Whatever your hand does, that ending is not the most important part. The most important part, I think, of this whole thing is that hammer.

Even if you played it as all 8th notes or 16th notes or whatever you wanted to, that is the most important part for getting that sound. If you can do that, you're gonna have a lot of the essence of the song. And then you can work on perfecting all these other little intricacies. So on this next measure, we have the A minor doing the hammer again, except we're gonna add the third fret on the high E string with our pinky. So it's almost kind of like an A minor 7 type chord. So that's going to be your 2. So instead of. It's going to be.

And you will hear that on the record. So it is an important note to get.

And again, I'm just switching over to G and then back to the D sus.

Okay, so you can hear again all those little hammer ons and all those notes. I think 1 and 2 are the most important beats.

And then you switch over to your other chord.

And then again desus and then switch over to your other chord.

And then 1 and 2.

And then desus again.

So that's even an easier way to do it. If you wanted to break it down. Just to start there, you can go.

1E2, 3e and a 4e and a 1e2, 3e and A 4e and a 1e2', 3e and a 4e and A 1e 2, 3e and a 4e &.

A. So that is a way that you could really break this down. Have it starting sounding a little bit more like the song again. We're just trying to capture the essence. It doesn't always have to be perfect. Okay. So that is, I guess, a slightly easier way to go about playing that intro. And after that, we get into the verses where the strumming is a little bit easier in terms of. I would just recommend doing 1.

And 2, 3 and 4. 1 and 2, 3 and.

4.

Okay. And you hear I'm kind of hitting bass notes on the 1 and, and then the 2. I'm.

Strumming. So 1 and 2, 3 and 4. 1 and 2, 3 and.

4.

And you can see how you can incorporate some of those things from the intro over this. That's why I said 1 and 2 really are the most important beats of this intro because now you can add those in.

Okay, I don't think I'm hearing that on the verses. It definitely comes back in the interludes between these verses. So if you just wanted to stick with, you know, she grew up.

In Indiana town Had a good looking mama never was around she grew up tall and she grew up right with them Indiana bars on an Indiana.

Night.

So you can just play that for the intro and the interludes and keep it really, really simple for the verses, particularly if you want to sing and play over this. Now we have the chorus. So this is where timing changes a bit on the chorus. And I'm going to give you a fun little strumming pattern that I think you can use consistently throughout this. So all of our chords on the chorus are now becoming whole measures. Okay, so what does that mean? Four beats. 1, 2, 3, 4. So the rhythm I wrote down for this, just to keep it simple is 1, 2, A, 3 E and 4. And 1, 2, A, 3, E and 4. And very similar to the first measure of our intro, except we just don't have the hammer on.

There. So it's going to be 1, 2, A, 3, E and 4. And down, down, up, down, up, down, down.

Down.

Okay, so we have two measures of E minor 7, a measure of a and then a G with the strum and hold. Okay, so let's take that chorus. So again, just to review the strumming.

Pattern. So it's 1, 2, A, 3, E and 4, and 1, 2, A, 3S e and 4 and 1, 2, A, three E and 4 and 1, 2, a, 3E and 4 and 1, two, a, three, e and four and 1, 2, a, three and four and 1, two, a, 3 and 4 and G2.

Three. Back to intro.

Okay, so you can hear how all of these parts are coming together to make this really, really cool sounding landscape for this song. So let's take all the parts of this song and now put them together. So we're going to do a ver, two verses. We'll do an interlude, a chorus, and then we'll do another interlude just so you can practice getting in and out of those parts. Okay. Now I will note, when I start singing and playing, my hand starts going on autopilot and starts improvising. Okay. At this stage of the game, if you're getting into doing songs like this, your hand is going to start improvising because it's going to feel the rhythm instead of that rote memorization that you're used to. So I'm going to take this from the top, we're going to play it through, and if you need to use the settings cog to slow me down. Absolutely. Feel free to slow me right down. One, two, ready?

And.

She grew up in an Indiana town Was a good looking girl my ever was around Grew up tall and she grew up right with them Indiana bars and an Indiana knife.

Well she moved down here at.

The age of 18 she blew the.

Boys away Was more than she'd seen it's introducing we both start grooving she said I di baby but I gotta keep moving.

Last dance for Mary Jane. One more time to kill the pain.

I feel summer creeping in and I'm tired of this town.

Again.

So if you have fun with this Tom Petty song, then I highly recommend you go check out my free free falling lesson right over there where I show you how to play along and sound just like tomorrow.