Song · Danny Wilson
“Mary's Prayer” by Danny Wilson
Released 1988
“Mary's Prayer” by Danny Wilson appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1987 and 2001. It was first released in 1988. Its best result is #39 on the WLIR Top 100 Songs of 1987. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #135 alternative song of 1987 and #6,436 alternative song of all time.
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"Mary's Prayer" was the first single from the Scottish pop group Danny Wilson, a Virgin release that also sits on their 1987 debut, Meet Danny Wilson, and a slice of polished sophisti-pop that went top ten in Britain and Ireland and cracked the top 40 in America. Gary Clark wrote it when the band still went by Spencer Tracy and worked as house band at the Swamp, a Dundee nightclub, not long after they got together in 1984.
It's thick with churchy imagery, enough that some called it an extended Catholic metaphor, but Clark waved that off: to him it's just a love song, closer in spirit to country and western, with the religious language a way of tying past, present and future together. He didn't even rate it the album's best track, only its most accessible, which is exactly why it went out first.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 39 | WLIR / WDRE Long Island, NY | WLIR Top 100 Songs of 1987 | 99 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 393 | Virgin Radio | Virgin Radio Top 500 Songs of All-Time (December 2001) | 500 |
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