Mary Jane By Janice Hartley

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She isn’t sick and she hasn’t a pain
And it’s medication time again
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
We’ve asked her and asked her to try and explain,
But she wants to go home, we may have to restrain,
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She’s begging and pleading and crying again,
The poor girl’s deluded, completely insane,
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
We’ve given her therapy, shocks to the brain,
And more of that nice medication again,
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She twitches and jerks like a doll on a chain,
And still no improvement, it all seems in vain,
What can be the matter with Mary Jane?

So that is the story of Mary Jane?
She wasn’t sick and she hadn’t a pain
But now she won’t ever be quite right again,
What have we done to you Mary Jane?

(The original Mary Jane was a little girl who did not like rice pudding.
She features in the poem ‘Rice Pudding’ by A.A.Milne, in ‘When We Were very Young’.)

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