Dying to see her? … or smoking the reefer?

Yes, it’s time once again to ask the musical question, “Is this song about a woman or is this song about drugs?” There’s a long history of ambiguous song lyrics, both intentional and unintentional, which beg the aforementioned question, and artists aren’t always willing to specify in order to remove the lyrical mystery. With Rick James, however, there’s little doubt.

James walked a weird and winding path before ascending to funk royalty. He joined the Navy while still a teen in the mid-60’s and almost immediately deserted to Canada to avoid going to Vietnam. While in Toronto he formed a rock band called the Mynah Birds who eventually scored a deal with Motown and recruited Neil Young on guitar, but unfortunately, his record deal gained the attention of authorities and James was sent to military prison…from which he later escaped. Sentenced to a longer stay in the brig, he cut a deal with the Navy and headed out to Los Angeles, the capital of cool, to make it in the music biz. He wasn’t even 20 years old yet.

Out in California, he almost joined CSNY as their bassist and became one of about a hundred people to claim that they were supposed to be at Roman Polanski’s house the night of the Manson murders but didn’t show up for one reason or another. He kicked around the scene, recording here and there without much to show for it, and in 1976 returned to his hometown of Buffalo where he started the Stone City Band. Boom! After more than a decade…..finally, success.

James signed with Motown again and released his debut album in 1978. His second single from that album, released in the fall of that year, was an ode to someone or something, called “Mary Jane.” If he had titled the song “Mary Ann,” no one would question that the subject matter was a female love interest since none of the lyrics explicitly — or even obliquely — reference marijuana. But everybody knew that “Mary Jane” was slang for weed, and James drove this point home by performing the song in concert flanked by two enormous, human-sized joints on stage while he sparked up a regular-sized doobie for himself.

But still, if you didn’t know that, you couldn’t be sure. It could simply be the story of a boy named Rick and a girl named Mary Jane who plays no games with his heart. And then they smoke a lot of ganja.

So turn on with her love … and with Rick James.