| The Rolling Stones – Backstreet Girl Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Superb song, as already noted. Have been to many Stones concerts over the years and my only disappointment was to never have heard this live. Its beautifully haunting music and the daring social commentary that one can read into the lyrics qualify this as bona fide art, rather than simple entertainment. | |
| The Rolling Stones – Ruby Tuesday Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Interesting comments, all of the above. Only the original lyricists know for certain what the song means. For my part, the first time I heard Ruby Tuesday, shortly after it was released, I was mesmerized. (And the first time I heard Melanie's rendition I felt haunted. It is not often that a cover comes across more powerfully than the original, but Melanie's throaty rendition is the default version that will always run through my mind.) As to the song, it falls between the bookends of Back Street Girl (musically) and Maggie May (lyrically). All three were songs for and by a generation that, although it did not always know it, was hungry for meaning yet wary of commitment, identifying with the present yet still expressing itself in terms from the past. In this case, Ruby was a wraith who drew the singer into a world that offered escape but no deliverance. The singer awakes, rues the fact that he could not draw her into his world, and reluctantly and nostalgically consigns memories of her to the world of ‘what might have been.’ A beautiful song, by any measure. |
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