Hazard (song)

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“Hazard”
Single by Richard Marx
from the album Rush Street
Released 1992
Recorded Oct 1991
Genre Pop
Length 05:17
Label Capitol Records
Richard Marx singles chronology
Keep Coming Back Hazard Take this Heart

Hazard is a 1991 song performed by pop music artist Richard Marx. It has since become one of the most popular songs of the decade and returned Marx to the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at #9. It also did very well in the United Kingdom, peaking at #3 on the UK Singles Chart. It also topped the ARIA Chart in Australia.

Contents

[edit] Song Overview

Hazard tells the story of an implied friendship or relationship between Marx's character (usually considered the protagonist) and a woman named Mary. Mary is presumably murdered and Marx, shunned by many in the small town since his childhood, is immediately considered the main suspect. Marx, however, maintains his innocence throughout the song, and the question of such is left open to the listener's interpretation.

[edit] Music Video

[edit] Overview

The music video for Hazard reveals additional details that can lead to speculation about the question of Marx's innocence while still following the song's lyrics and ultimately leaving the outcome open to interpretation.

[edit] Details

The music video opens with several older men teasing Marx's character as a child with his mother in the background. The video then shows Mary, who is depicted as having features very similar to Marx's mother. Various scenes in this sequence can cause the viewer to become unclear about the nature of their relationship. As the story continues, the town's sheriff is shown taking photographs of the couple and following one or both of them in his vehicle.

It is implied that Marx goes to see Mary but catches her making love to an unidentified person. Again, the video flashes back to his childhood, where Marx sees his mother committing adultery. In present time, the sheriff arrives and sees Marx, who then flees, leaving his scarf behind on the branch of a bush. Marx returns home and weeps about Mary.

Mary is then shown alone near the river spoken of in the song. She turns to face the camera with a look of surprise on her face, and it is then made to look as if she lay in water. The next morning (as the song states), several people assist in arresting Marx for Mary's murder.

While in the interrogation room, Marx is shown a white cloth, which the sheriff identifies as the item used to strangle Mary. Marx then denies that he and Mary were romantically involved, and the sheriff asks if Marx was jealous. At this point, the video reveals a larger picture of Marx's childhood: that after his mother's affair, his father leaves her for another woman. Marx is then shown as a child setting a house on fire, although it is unclear whose it is.

Locals are shown vandalizing Marx's home, breaking windows and setting fire to it. It is implied that Marx cannot be proven guilty when the sheriff drops him off at his ruined home. As the video ends, a woman walking by covers her young son's eyes, again implying Marx is an outcast or considered guilty of Mary's murder.

[edit] Who Killed Mary?

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Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2008)

This question was likely purposely left unanswered, however, arguments can be made for several points of view.

[edit] Marx's Character

By listening strictly to the lyrics, one might infer that Marx's character murdered Mary. He gives statements that could be interpreted as conflicting, such as "No one understood what I felt for Mary / No one cared until the night she went out walking alone / And never came home..." followed in the refrain by "I swear I left her by the river / I swear I left her safe and sound..." This may cause some to wonder how he left her by the river if she was walking alone. Others may simply take it to mean the river is the last place he saw her.

On the other hand, Marx's character does sing in the chorus "We used to walk on by the river/ and dream of a way out of this town", implying that he and Mary dreamed of leaving Hazard- so it is possible that the refrain of the second chorus meant that they were planning to escape- but he may have left something behind and left Mary by the river- only to find her dead when he returned. This explanation also makes sense, as Marx's character claims his innocence throughout the song.

In the video, Marx's character has clearly suffered a troubled childhood and it is depicted that it affects his adult life deeply. When he sees Mary with another man, it is possible that he flies into a jealous rage, follows her to the river, and kills her, later returning home to mourn his loss.

What may support this argument further is the suggestion of the breakdown of Marx's parents' marriage, and his potential blame of his mother. The first flashback scene that suggests this depicts the mother in a romantic embrace with a shirtless man with long hair. A memory actually jogged for Marx's character by seeing Mary in a passionate clinch with her lover. In the memory, we see a young Marx looking on at the tryst through a lace curtain. We later see what appears to be the father walking out on Marx and his mother, and in to the arms of another woman. We then see in a last flashback the lace curtain going up in flames, and a young Marx fleeing alone out of the family home. It would certainly be conceivable then that the local people would look at him with "prejudiced eyes" if there were suspicions over whether he was involved in his mother's possible "hazard" death.

It is also interesting that the mother's lover has long hair, and we never see his face. We see the mother lying down in one embrace with the lover, yet seemingly emotionally engaged with a young Marx as she looks over her lover's shoulder towards him. It seems almost purposive that both Mary and Marx's mother, and Marx and his mother's lover almost resemble each other. The relationship Marx's character has with Mary interweaves in an almost oedipal way with the relationship he has with his mother.

Interestingly, in the first and last scene of the video, we see Marx cutting his hair by the riverside. This perhaps suggests a physical act of emancipation as he 'cuts away' the memories of love and betrayal caused by both his mother and Mary.

[edit] The Sheriff

The video seems to heavily imply that the Sheriff is guilty. He is seen following one or both of them, taking their pictures, and even keeping pictures of Mary in his squad car. Mary is also shown running away from the squad car on one occasion.

The sheriff identifies a white cloth as the murder weapon while interrogating Marx. It appears to be the same white scarf Marx lost on the branch of the bush the night Mary was killed, and the sheriff was the only other person visible at the scene.

Motives could include the sheriff's possible jealousy of Marx and Mary, and the desire to exile Marx permanently from the town by framing him.

[edit] Mary's Lover

It is also possible that Mary's unidentified lover could be the killer, perhaps because he may have seen Marx lingering outside Mary's house. However, the viewer is given little else to help them come to this conclusion.

[edit] Naming the song

This song about a fictional event was named after Hazard, Nebraska, a real town. Reportedly, Marx became caught on the phrase "...and leave this old Nebraska town." He needed a two-syllable town name to fit the first line of the song, so he obtained a list of the names of all two-syllable towns and cities in Nebraska, from which he chose Hazard.

Additionally, the song begins with the lines My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven, even then the folks in town said with prejudiced eyes, that boy's not right. It is unknown whether this was a deliberate play on words on Richard Marx's part, but as the phrase "to come to hazard" also means to meet with danger, there is an ambiguity in the lyrics, which alludes to two possible scenarios:

1.) When the narrator was seven, he migrated to the town of Hazard with his mother, and the natives took an instant dislike to him for reasons unknown and unexplained, but most likely the fact that he was an outsider who did not fit in with them;

2.) When the narrator was seven, something happened to his mother, and the natives suspected that the narrator was in some way involved. Notably, the listener learns no further information about the narrator's mother in the song, and there is also no mention of the residents of Hazard taking dislike to the narrator's mother - only the narrator himself.

See links below for more information.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
"Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa L. Williams		 ARIA (Australia) number one single
25 July 1992 - 14 August 1992		 Succeeded by
"Amigos Para Siempre" by José Carreras and Sarah Brightman