Sometimes, it takes a cover to unearth the true depths of a song. Franco Battiato’s version of ‘Ruby Tuesday’ is gorgeously, well, Italian. He turns The Rolling Stones classic into a baroque opera of heartbreak. In truth, this is what the original intended, but a jubilant chorus got in the way. After all, Keith Richards isn’t really the sort to let his softer side be revealed so easily.
Nevertheless, the song comes from a place of Richards’ sorry despair. The first mournful chords declare this, while the exultancy of the chorus makes it clear that you can’t keep him down for long. As he recalls in the book According to the Rolling Stones: “It was probably written about Linda Keith not being there (laughs). I don’t know, she had pissed off somewhere. It was very mournful, very, VERY Ruby Tuesday and it was a Tuesday.”
Linda Keith was a prominent figure in the counterculture movement, having risen to prominence as a fashion model. She frequented the clubs of Greenwich Village and clearly had a keen eye for talent, as Keith is credited as the first person who alerted Chas Chandler to Jimi Hendrix. He took her word for it, went down to see the little-known virtuoso play, and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.
However, she tragically fell victim to the pitfalls of the liberated age. In the mid-1960s, she steadily grew more dependent on drugs and drifted towards a downward spiral. In fact, the goodbye in this song is rather literal. Richards genuinely couldn’t find her. Thus, he contacted her father, the actor and British radio DJ Alan Keith. Although her father had disapproved of her work, he agreed to travel to New York to try and support her and save her from the dark times that had seemingly beset her lifestyle.
Despite the specificity of the subject matter, Richards says he tried to make the song as universal as possible. He said of the song: “That’s one of those things – some chick you’ve broken up with. And all you’ve got left is the piano and the guitar and a pair of panties. And it’s goodbye you know. And so it just comes out of that.”
Adding: “After that you just build on it. It’s one of those songs that are easiest to write because you’re really right there and you really sort of mean it. And for a songwriter, hey break his heart and he’ll come up with a good song.”
While you might not think of Richards as much of a heartbroken writer sort, there is no doubt that the song is one of The Rolling Stones’ finest from Between The Buttons. The song typified the baroque pop of the period with an expansive array of instrumentation adding to Richards’ simple farewell.
