The Songs We Will Sing.

#41: Ruby Tuesday: Rolling Stones: 1967

The Rolling Stones are on tour through the UK and Europe as I write this. Not bad for a band that formed in the very beginning of the 1960s and are still performing with very few changes to their line up. Brian Jones, guitarist, died in 1969, Bill Wyman left the band in 1993 and Charlie Watts, drummer, died in 2021. Original members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood are still alive, kicking and touring. The Stones are well into their 70s now and have earned the nick name, The Strolling Bones.

My Rolling Stones song is their 1967 Ruby Tuesday written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. It is a love song written about a girl Jagger loved but she was an all over the place type of lass and then one day she just up and left to chase her dreams. I think maybe she left on a Tuesday and maybe her name was Ruby but these are not the really important parts of the story because this song is more than a song about a girl; it is a song about life!

Ruby Tuesday is a metaphor for life; its changing nature, its uncertainties, that the past cannot be held onto, that people cannot be put in a box, tied up and held onto either, that life is transient and we miss what has passed and what has been lost but we all have our dreams and if we don’t do anything about chasing those dreams they will just slip away. It’s also about freedom and risk and the idea that a life where nothing’s gained and nothing’s lost is essentially a life that is meaningless and to live a meaningless life is done at such a cost.

Here’s to The Rolling Stones who for 60 years have been putting out gritty, hard rock music.

The Rolling Stones Ruby Tuesday Live 1967 – YouTube The Rolling Stones, Ruby Tuesday Live 1967. I have chosen this clip, it is old, but boy, you have got to love that young Mick Jagger!

Ruby Tuesday – Melanie Safka – YouTube- I could not complete this blog with out a mention of Melanie Safka’s cover version of Ruby Tuesday. This cover is simply magnificent, earthy, powerful, heartfelt; you really must listen to it.