“Crazy Mary” by FM Static, Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Last year Both Good Christian Fun and Church Jams Now celebrated the twentieth anniversary of FM Static’s 2003 debut album, What Are You Waiting For? The album produced several Christian Rock hits including “Something to Believe In” and “Crazy Mary” and the band shot a video for the song “Definitely Maybe.” The song “Something to Believe In” was the lone song formulated on the album in which the band cynically rejects religion in search of “a new focus, a new destination.” “Definitely Maybe” sounds like an ‘03 update of a John Hughes movie’s plot, and with its controversial name-drop of being “At the movie theater watching Harry Potter” feels like a tonal departure from the album’s “spiritual highlight.”

 

POINTING AS THEY LAUGH AND STARE AT HER. FM Static’s debut single was “Crazy Mary.” Good Christian Fun and Church Jams Now made a similar point about the song. The lyrics aim to be compassionate toward a homeless woman but when other people “laugh and call her names.” The speaker, however, also calls the “slow girl who looks up to no one” the same name that everyone else does “Crazy Mary,” thus reducing her to a stereotype rather than a real person. Essentially, she’s the object lesson of a sermon. She’s the person you can encounter in the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving and Christmas and pray she finds her way. What’s even worse is that she’s an alcoholic. Maybe she fried her brain on drugs. Maybe she has schizophrenia. The best solution is to get her into the church soup kitchen so that she can learn about Jesus and stop drinking “a cold one.” Maybe the biggest problem with the song is Main Character Syndrome. The chorus spells it out:

  Maybe if I took a little time to talk 

Then she could heal a little if she wants to. 

She can run but let’s teach her how to walk away now. 

WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR A COLD ONE. I’m being hard on FM Static’s “Crazy Mary,” which is not entirely fair. Most of the songs are written from the perspective of a super clean church teen. The problem with the song is that one church kid and one church’s soup kitchen don’t solve the systemic problem that creates “Crazy Marys.” What causes people on the margins to fall off? What causes addictions that cripple a person? Which people are susceptible? How do race, sexual orientation, and prior economic class factor into these problems? The Christian charity solution to the homeless often aims to undermine the government solutions. Pastors urge congregants to vote for politicians who support the wealthy and cripple the poor. They tell narratives about “Crazy Mary” who is struggling with the demon of alcoholism and just needs to come to church where the church can support her so that she can eventually become self-sufficient. I’m not arguing that the church shouldn’t be part of the solution. But it’s worrying with the church's political force aiming to monopolize charity by demonizing government and secular charities. What if “Crazy Mary” were gay? Would they love and support her choices, or would the donations stop? Is the gift conditional?

 Read the lyrics on Genius.