| 29th October 2006 01:18 AM |
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| Carpenter |
Pretty much every source (even Bill Wyman and Marianna Faithfull) claim that it was a Jones/Richards song and someone (either the would-be Glimmer Twins, Andrew, or someone at the record company) changed it to Jagger/Richards. What do you guys think?
I have to say it's definitely a Jones/Richards song. If anyone has ever heard The Degree Of Murder stuff, read any of Brian's existing lyrics, or even contrasted and compared songs that Brian wrote but never recorded with Ruby Tuesday, it's easy to say why.
There is one example of Brian's lyrics that actually made it to a CD in 1990. The poem, titled "Thank You For Being There" was written by Brian, adapted to music by Carla Olson and performed on CD by Krysia Kristianne and Robin Williamson.
1. As each sharp outline
Melts and weaves
And undulates in time
With the compulsive
Rhythmic insistence
Of each pounding musical line
The scornful dancing lady dressed
In black at last reveals
She really isn't there at all
She simply isn't real
So thank you for being there, my love
At least I know that you're real
2. As I speak with you of love
-In metaphors and in code
A need for satisfaction grows
But they're stories still to be told
Of experience and fantasies.
Of vision and of fears
But when the visions fade
-you'll be there
Lying in my tears
Thank you for being there my love
Then I know that you're real
3. If the lashing tail of paranoiac fears
Strike my smarting face
Your understanding comforts me
And puts everything in its place
So shush, my love,
Your look and your touch
Can leave everything unsaid
And I can face all those
Little people
Just like Gulliver did.
Thank you for being there, my love
At last I've found someone who's real
4. The maniacal choirs that screamed out a warning
Now sings out lullaby
The walls that crashed to bury you and me
Now shelter our hideaway
Thank you for being there my love
At last I've found someone that's real
Thank you for being there my love
At last I know that you're real
If you compare that with Ruby Tuesday, you'll find some similarities. Other things also lead me to believe it's a Jones/Richards song.
- Take the chorus of RT, in which 'you' is rhymed with 'you'. This is rather daring and most lyricists (including Mick) would rather say something more ordinary with another word to rhyme with 'you' than to say something more profound and have to rhyme the same word with itself. McCartney was one of the few songwriters of the time who did this with no shame, but if you look at these lyrics, you'll also see examples of Brian rhyming a word with itself, whereas Mick and Keith usually wouldn't but RT did.
- Brian's girlfriend Linda said this about him: "His songs were romantic, sort of spiritual. His songs were like Donovan's-about his feelings. But Brian almost never said, 'I'll show the boys this one,' because he was insecure. He thought his things were too sentimental. I would encourage him to do his own things, but Brian would say, 'They're not finished,' That was his excuse all the time. And so he just kept to himself." Wouldn't you call Ruby Tuesday romantic, about feelings, or even spiritual?
- Consider Mick and Keith's output around the time. Most of the songs on Between The Buttons and Aftermath before it were pretty much about leaving a girl or at least songs putting a woman down. The only songs that weren't about that were more about sex than romance (let's spend the night together). I mean, look at the other songs from the Buttons sessions:
Back Street Girl basically says I don't want to date you, I just want to fuck you as I please. Yesterday's Papers is about dumping a girl and moving on. Connection is apparently about not being able to get back with a girl. Let's Spend The Night Together is about oral sex. Cool Calm and Collected is a put-down song, as are Complicated and Miss Amanda Jones. All Sold Out is about being betrayed or ditched by a girl. Who's Been Sleeping Here is about getting cheated on, and Something Happened to Me Yesterday is basically the weird, ambiguous Beatles-type experiment. She Smiled Sweetly is Mick's first true love song to Marianne.
My point is basically that pretty much none of Jagger/Richards songs from this period bear similarities to Ruby Tuesday in terms of subject matter.
- Musically, Ruby Tuesday isn't very similar to the stuff Keith had written up to that point. Keith was very much into using the basic rock n roll or blues chords (E, A, D, B7) and then using those as a foundation upon which his more complex riffs could be created. The chord changes and note movements in Ruby Tuesday are not reminiscent of Keith's style at all, and Mick was not writing music in those days. The way the A minor goes to a D with a seventh in the pre-chorus (the inclusion of a pre-chorus is also not very Jagger/Richards-ish) and back to home base with a G is NOT Keef-ish at all, neither is the musical surprise of the Bb and F in the chorus (it's a key change you're not expecting, as the verses and pre-chorus are in G and the first chords of the chorus are C and G which could fit into G, but Bb and F mean that the key changed to an F). It's more like a Bach piece than a Richards' piece, and that's something Brian was very capable of seeing as (according to Bill Wyman by way of wikipedia) "Jones's mother Louisa was a piano teacher and started teaching her son the instrument at a very young age. Eventually Brian required formal lessons as he progressed too quickly for her to continue teaching him. He soon learned how to read music, and eventually took up the clarinet, becoming first clarinet in his school orchestra at 14." Basically, Ruby Tuesday is MUSICALLY more similar to other pieces Brian supposedly came up with (sitar melody in Paint It Black for instance) than to the stuff Keith did (Satisfaction riff, 19th Nervous Breakdown suspended riff, etc.), and they were the only ones that could've written the music for this at the time. Keith probably contributed, but it seems to be mainly a Jones thing.
- Jones contributed musically to this even more than the other songs from this period (if that's even possible): He played two piano tracks, recorder, and autoharp and backing vocals (though these last two are quite buried in the mix; if you have speakers capable of creating a good hi-fi sound and a program to slow the songs down, that helps to hear more if what's going on). I read that he also originally played the cello part but then Keith and Bill did their own so Wyman could have something to contribute to the song.
- One last thing to consider is the treatment of the song by Mick and Keith. In the US it was placed as the b-side to Let's Spend The Night Together, but DJ's didn't like the sexuality on the a-side so they flipped it over and played Ruby instead, making it the a-side by default I guess. Even though it was probably the Stones best, most beautiful, and most commercial song of the period, Mick and Keith were never able to bring themselves to put it as the a-side over LSTNT.
You can all draw your own conclusions; I've already drawn mine and was curious as to see whether or not I was in the minority when it came to the fans at this board.
[Edited by Carpenter] |
| 29th October 2006 06:47 AM |
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| Taptrick |
I think you may have a point - but, although I like the Stones more English sounding songs, I've always been happy Brian left the band.
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| 29th October 2006 09:50 AM |
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| glencar |
It's 40 years ago; time to move on. |
| 29th October 2006 11:21 AM |
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| Mel Belli |
Brian's recorder was indispensible, but not compositional. I'd say the basic composition, that is, lyrics and chords, was all Keith's. |
| 29th October 2006 12:12 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
it's a Keith tune all the way |
| 29th October 2006 12:17 PM |
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| Cocaine Eyes |
I say the same. Keef all the way. The song has the early Keef feel. |
| 29th October 2006 02:06 PM |
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| Soldatti |
Keith 60%, Brian 30%, Mick 10% |
| 29th October 2006 09:10 PM |
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| tumbled |
I remember seeing somewhere a video of Keith being asked, what is the song ruby tuesday about, and he said something to the effect of, 'its about a love letter I got a long time ago'...but I WISH I could recall WHERE I saw this clip...the brain is gone.. |
| 29th October 2006 09:28 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
tumbled wrote:
I remember seeing somewhere a video of Keith being asked, what is the song ruby tuesday about, and he said something to the effect of, 'its about a love letter I got a long time ago'...but I WISH I could recall WHERE I saw this clip...the brain is gone..
It's about Linda Keith as far I know. |
| 29th October 2006 09:31 PM |
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| Mel Belli |
For what it's worth, Mick told Jann Wenner in '95 that he particularly enjoys singing "Ruby Tuesday's" lyrics and melody - "neither of which I wrote." |
| 29th October 2006 09:58 PM |
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| Carpenter |
It just doesn't add up, musically, lyrically, and thematically to being all keef's composition. especially the music. I'll take that Brian wrote most of the music and some of the words and keef wrote some of the words and maybe contributed to some music, but I don't think it could conceivably be all Keef.
Someone said that Brian's recorder wasn't a songwriting contribution or something, but if you read the whole post (especially the stuff after his lyrics) you'll see that that's not a point I was trying to prove. The fact that he overdubbed so much could also be evidence that RT was his baby in production.
And Mick has already been ruled out as a songwriter on Ruby: He said himself that the lyric and melody aren't his and he wasn't playing any instruments at the time (except harmonica which doesn't appear in the song) well enough to write any chords or any thing like that on an instrument. |
| 29th October 2006 10:01 PM |
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| tumbled |
I believe the clip to which I am referring was the BBC One Interview back about 2 years ago where the lady dj was asking questions of ronnie, mick, keith and charlie on 4 different days telecast. |
| 30th October 2006 09:07 AM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
I think its pretty much all Keith, but there is no doubting that Brian made the major instrumental contribution to the song. |
| 30th October 2006 05:02 PM |
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| the good |
quote:
Carpenter wrote:
1. As each sharp outline
Melts and weaves
And undulates in time
With the compulsive
Rhythmic insistence
Of each pounding musical line
The scornful dancing lady dressed
In black at last reveals
She really isn't there at all
She simply isn't real
So thank you for being there, my love
At least I know that you're real
2. As I speak with you of love
-In metaphors and in code
A need for satisfaction grows
But they're stories still to be told
Of experience and fantasies.
Of vision and of fears
But when the visions fade
-you'll be there
Lying in my tears
Thank you for being there my love
Then I know that you're real
3. If the lashing tail of paranoiac fears
Strike my smarting face
Your understanding comforts me
And puts everything in its place
So shush, my love,
Your look and your touch
Can leave everything unsaid
And I can face all those
Little people
Just like Gulliver did.
Thank you for being there, my love
At last I've found someone who's real
4. The maniacal choirs that screamed out a warning
Now sings out lullaby
The walls that crashed to bury you and me
Now shelter our hideaway
Thank you for being there my love
At last I've found someone that's real
Thank you for being there my love
At last I know that you're real
No wonder Brian never became a songwriter for the band. He sucked. |
| 30th October 2006 08:25 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
he couldn't write a song to save his life |
| 31st October 2006 02:06 AM |
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| Zambero |
"The walls that crashed to bury you and me
Now shelter our hideaway"
Not bad poetry actually, but's it's not really a song and shouldn't be judged as such.
Brian's strength was in the melodic realm. With a lyrical collaborator he might have gone on to develop his songwriting skills. My own perception is that Mick and Keith saw themselves as a self-contained songwriting unit, and as such they didn't see a need to bring in a third party. They were no doubt willing to "borrow" ideas from the others and include them during the recording process, but at the time the narrow definition of a song was the lyrics and vocal melody, period. At least in the Stones realm this seemed to be the case. Other bands, such as The Doors considered the instrumentation, soloes, riffs, and counter-melodies on an equal footing with the words and vocal melody. In that context, Brian (and also Bill and Mick Taylor) would have received more than a few co-credits. |
| 31st October 2006 04:53 AM |
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| Mathijs |
As a matter of fact, only Marianne Faithful has claimed (in her book) that Jones wrote RT. Everyone else around the Stones -including Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Glyn Johns and Keith Richards himself- has stated it was Keith who wrote the melody and the lyrics. Wyman even specifically mentions RT as a song that Richards wrote in his last book. Keith recorded the song with Jones on piano and recorder, Watts on drums and himself and Bill Wyman on cello. Jagger later overdubbed the vocals. Keith has also mentioned several times in interviews that he wrote the song in a motel in the US while on tour, and that the actual subject was a groupie who called herself Ruby.
If you look at the basic structure of the song, so you take away the recorded and cello, it is a typical Keith song, and one like many others he wrote at that time. The chord structure of the scale going down whole steps can also be heard in songs like As Tears Go By, Play with Fire, Sad Day and especially Dandelion, which is structural a close cousin to RT.
Once you have the basic melody and chord structure the writing credits are set. You can play recorder, piano and what more, but it will never earn you a writing credit. And, although the recorder part was something that was quite new in '66, it does just follow the main melody. The true genius of the song is the way the bass lines played on the cello counter act with the (beautiful) vocal melody.
Many people want to prove that Jones did write songs, but in my opinion RT is one of the worst examples to prove this. There are some tracks on Between the Buttons that I suspect Brian to have more to do with than with RT.
Mathijs
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| 31st October 2006 06:25 AM |
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| Philip |
Perhaps it's jack nitzche on piano though, he's on other tracks recorded at Olympic Studios at that time. To me, it sounds too fluent etc to be Brian.
Bill and Keith actually play a double bass with the lowest string taken off and tied out of the way.
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