The Wind Cries Mary
Jamie Cullum Lyrics

After all the jacks are in their boxes,
After everything is put away and settled,

And the clowns have all gone to bed,
And all the distractions and sources of entertainment have been turned off,

You can hear happiness staggering on down the street,
You can sense that people are out searching for happiness or trying to keep it together,

Footprints dress in red.
All the while, life keeps going and people keep moving forward, leaving behind signs of their presence and journeys.

And the wind whispers Mary.
In the midst of all this, there is a soft, mournful sound of a gust of wind, which brings to mind the name Mary and captures the feeling of sadness and loss that permeates throughout.

A broom is drearily sweeping
In the following section, the focus is shifted towards the reality of a mundane, boring and repetitive life, represented by a broom that is being inadequately used to sweep up the remnants of their prior existence.

Up the broken pieces of yesterday's life.
The debris from a previous time and place, which they are trying to tidy up but with no real hope of them being able to make whole again.

Somewhere a Queen is weeping,
There is a general sense of injustice and sadness throughout the world, as even those who are seemingly more favored are not free from sorrow.

Somewhere a King has no wife.
Similarly, even those who seem to have it all do not have it all, as they also have been denied companionship or the love of their life, expressing a sense of loss.

And the wind cries Mary.
Again, the wind returns more forcefully, expressing the depth of pain and melancholy that is present in the world through the name Mary, a symbol of sorrow.

The traffic lights turn blue tomorrow
Moving onto the next section, the future is depicted as uncertain and cold, with the image of traffic lights that turn blue signalling a sense of loneliness and depression about what is to come.

Shine their emptiness down on my bed
This feeling extends into the personal space of the singer, as their bed is illuminated not with warmth or light, but with a sense of emptiness and foreboding.

The tiny island sags downstream
Later on, a metaphor is used to describe the decline of the wider society; a tiny island being overrun by the weight of the river stream and unable to keep afloat, representing how society is overwhelmed by its own love of progress and technology.

'cause the life that they lived is dead.
The progress that was made earlier is shown to come at a high price, with the death of the old ways and traditions, leaving putrid and broken downsides in its wake.

And the wind screams Mary.
The wind is now portrayed as more aggressive than crying, instead screaming with the name Mary, which seems to involve a pain that is greater than just sadness, but also fear and confusion.

Oh oh yeah
An untranslatable 'oh yeah' follows, possibly depicting the humdrum of the same existence repeating itself once again.

Will the wind ever remember
Towards the end, the question is raised as to whether the wind will remember the past and its names; those who have been lost, those who have passed on, those who have been fundamentally forgotten.

The names it has blown in the past
The presence of these entities has been carried on the wind, but if they are forgotten, doesn't that make their existence trivial?

With this crutch, its old age and its wisdom
Seen older and more experienced than anything else around, the wind has come to represent knowledge beyond where everyone else can reach, but at the same time, being susceptible to the surrender of limitations and being unable to prevent the passage of time.

It whispers, "No, this will be the last."
The song then ends with the wind answering that question, and saying that it will be the last to remember; the last bearer of memories of the past, the last remembrance of the names of those who we have lost.