October 8, 2020 —– Chart #60

Hello Musical Friends,

It’s Friday again, time to start the weekend. Today we are going with one of the greatest rock bands of all time. A band that hit the scenes from UK, a centerpiece of the British invasion.  The band was formed in 1962 and put their first album out in 1964 and have never stopped since. “Ruby Tuesday” is a song recorded by the Rolling Stones in 1966, released in January 1967. The song, coupled with “Let’s Spend the Night Together”, was a number-one hit in the United States and reached number three in the United Kingdom. The song was included in the American version of Between the Buttons (in the UK, singles were often excluded from studio albums). Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song number 310 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

“Ruby Tuesday” was recorded at Olympic Studios in London, England in November 1966 . The session was produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. Brian Jones played the recorder and piano, while the double bass was played jointly by bassist Bill Wyman and guitarist Keith Richards. Richards explained that the lyrics are about Linda Keith, his girlfriend in the mid-1960s:

Who could hang a name on you

When you change with every new day?

Still, I’m gonna miss you.

“That’s a wonderful song,” Mick Jagger told Jann Wenner in 1995. “It’s just a nice melody, really. And a lovely lyric. Neither of which I wrote, but I always enjoy singing it.” Wyman states in Rolling with the Stones that the lyrics were completely written by Richards with help from Jones on the musical composition. However, Marianne Faithfull recalls it differently; according to her, Jones presented an early version of this melody to the rest of the Rolling Stones. According to Victor Bockris, Richards came up with the basic track and the words and finished the song with Jones in the studio.

“Ruby Tuesday” was released as the B-side to “Let’s Spend the Night Together” on January 1967. Due to the controversial nature of the A-side’s lyrics, “Ruby Tuesday” earned more airplay and ended up charting higher in both the UK and the US. The song topped the American Billboard Hot 100 chart, while reaching number three in the UK’s Record Retailer chart, which listed “Let’s Spend The Night Together”/”Ruby Tuesday” as a double A-side.

“Ruby Tuesday” was included on the US version of the 1967 album Between the Buttons, while being left out of the British edition, as was common practice with singles in the UK at that time. That summer, the song appeared on the US compilation album Flowers. Due to its success, the song became a staple of the band’s compilations, being included on Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (1969), Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (1971), Rolled Gold (1975), and 30 Greatest Hits (1977), and, in mono, on Singles Collection: The London Years (1989).

Enjoy a 1967 appearance on the Ed Sullivan show: 

Live in 1991: 

And again live in 2013 (46 years later). Keith Richards looks (and sings) a little bit halloweenish: https://youtu.be/dp9By4KTNM0

Keep rockin’,

Stan