The Rolling Stones Album-by-Album Thread (it's about damn time) - Part 2

Rather have my mind "blown" rather than "broken."
Rock for all it's experimentalism is still pop music striving for melody and poetic lyric.
The far reaching studio productions and songcraft are still very expansive
The New Jazz of latter day Coltrane is pure deconstructionism. A purposeful assault.
I'm not sure that was ever a true achievement and had J.C. lived it could be likely he would have gone through the phase
and went back to be-boppin' on show tunes and world grooves.

Who wants struggle? That's for the youth
..

 

I still don't like Standing but I like it a little more now after reading this thread.

I was talking to my wife last night who is a bigger Stones fan than that "other band" and I was saying how Staining in the Shadow kind of sucks, she said well its not one of their better songs but it doesn't suck. She then proceeded to sing the "Tell me a story, about how you adore me" and it was sexy.

So thanks guys!

 

she said yeah!!

 

And "Who's Been Sleeping Here?"

 

just listened to Who's Driving Your Plane. i think for the first time . i like it...so much better than the A side. pretty much feel the same as mschrist does on this one so instead of parroting his remarks i'll just quote them - ""Who's Driving Your Plane?" is a lot more fun to hear--I hadn't really listened to it before, probably because I was turned off by the terrible title. I don't really think I've heard a track quite like this one. It'd be good as a straightforward blues track, but it's even better with that barely audible psychedelic vocal effect in the background; it's just odd enough to make the track sound slightly "off", and after a few listens I'm still not entirely sure I'm hearing."

 

In this installment, the Stones just won't be chained to a life where nothing's gained and nothing's lost....


UK 45: "Let's Spend The Night Together" b/w "Ruby Tuesday"
Released as Decca F.12546 -- January 13, 1967
US 45: "Let's Spend The Night Together" b/w "Ruby Tuesday"
Released as London 45-904 -- January 14, 1967

Found on CD:

• The Singles Collection - the london years [1989 edition] -- both tracks in their original mono single mixes; the 2002 ABKCO reissue accidentally substitutes an alternate mix for "Ruby Tuesday."
• Between The Buttons [US version] -- both tracks in stereo
• Flowers -- both tracks in stereo
• Hot Rocks/1964-1971 -- both tracks in stereo

Having committed what was arguably their first commercial blunder with "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?" -- but content that they'd 'proved a point' nonetheless -- The Rolling Stones played it safe with their UK followup, "Let's Spend The Night Together." The song is inviting, hook-laden pop, driven (uncharacteristically for the Stones) by Jack Nitszche's clomping piano and Brian Jones' bed of organ rather than Richards' guitar. Coming on the heels of the exoticism of "Paint It, Black" and the quasi-avant garde "Have You Seen Your Mother," however, it couldn't help but sound positively reactionary, a retreat from musical experimentation.

As if to compensate for the song's musical retrenchment, Jagger supplied it with a set of lyrics that were the group's most controversial yet. A baldly sexual come-on stripped clean of the metaphors or indirection typical for that era, "Let's Spend The Night Together" is the Sixties musical equivalent of "nice shoes -- let's f**k." (Meanwhile Jagger continued to gleefully insult the intelligence of those who raised either eyebrows or concerns: "I always say 'Let's spend the night together' to any young lady I'm taking out. If people have warped, twisted, dirty minds, I suppose it could have sexual overtones.") The combination of irresistibly unthreatening musical hooks with socially transgressive lyrical content was good for both a passel of semi-outraged image-bolstering headlines and a nearly ideal #3 UK chart placement: popular enough to make the top 3, but not so popular as to have been co-opted by straight society.

As risqué a proposition as "Let's Spend The Night Together" was in the UK, it was immediately understood by Andrew Loog Oldham to be a commercial non-starter in the United States, vast swathes of which had already been plenty put off by the pill-popping antics of "Mother's Little Helper" and the aggressively psychedelic nonsense of "Have You Seen Your Mother" the year before. ("Helper" had been held back from the UK Aftermath by London Records for release as a "can't miss" non-album single in the US, only to struggle its way to an unexpectedly weak #8. The plainly bizarre "Have You Seen Your Mother" never had a chance; a bemused US record-buying public hauled it to #9 for one week out of sheer curiosity before summarily despatching it from the charts altogether.) Any remaining doubts the band may have had were extinguished by the group's 15 January 1967 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, where an eye-rolling Jagger was forced by Sullivan and CBS censors to sing "Let's Spend Some Time Together" in place of the title exhortation. (When the group sought to protest by returning to the stage for their post-performance interview wearing Nazi uniforms, Sullivan kicked them out of the studio and permanently banned them from his show.)

Oldham had foreseen all of this well in advance, which is why he scheduled "Let's Spend The Night Together" for release as a 'double A-side' single and instead promoted its flip as the lead track in the US: "Ruby Tuesday." (The choice was a canny one; "Ruby Tuesday" quickly became The Rolling Stones' fourth #1 single in the United States while "Let's Spend The Night Together" floundered in lower reaches of the charts.) The decision to push "Ruby Tuesday" in the United States over the more 'daring' "Let's Spend The Night Together" attracted serious, and seriously misguided, heat from US's nascent rock criticism press for the first time. This cadre of young writers -- then scattered among various newspapers but soon to find a centralizing hub with the November 1967 launch of Rolling Stone magazine -- was inextricably bound to a socially trendy countercultural worldview as well as a dilettantish affection for the violently revolutionary idiocies of the hard Left. Burdened with these ideological blinders, they thus made an entirely predictable show of privileging the "correct" sexual and social politics over artistic matters in what was purported to be musical criticism; hence the belief that "Let's Spend The Night Together" held superior merit due to its 'subversive message' while the lyrically uncontroversial "Ruby Tuesday" was a 'safe' record which, by failing to upset any parental applecarts, represented a disappointing 'sell out' by the group.

Viewed in retrospect, these criticisms reveal an amusingly quotidian lack of imagination on the part of those making them. With its louche sexual appeals and Jerry Lee Lewis-throwback piano stomp, "Let's Spend The Night Together" is remarkably musically conservative despite the window dressing of its title. "Ruby Tuesday," on the other hand, is a stunning leap forward for a band whose last two attempts at recording ballads had resulted in the obnoxiously juvenile "As Tears Go By" and the comparatively stiff "Lady Jane." A ballad of disputed authorship -- Richards claims full musical and lyrical credit, but multiple eyewitnesses indicate that Jones came up with at least some of the melodic ideas -- "Ruby Tuesday" is a striking departure from the band's previous ensemble sound. There are no electric guitars within a mile of the instrumental track, and aside from an acoustic guitar and bass in the chorus, the only stringed instrument present in the mix is an upright acoustic double bass bowed (not plucked) by Wyman and Richards during the verses.

Like "Let's Spend The Night Together," the arrangement of "Ruby Tuesday" is built around tastefully minimalist piano playing (either by Jack Nitzsche or Brian Jones). But the resemblance ends there, due to the presence of what remains the single finest non-traditional instrumental contribution in the entire Rolling Stones catalogue: Brian Jones' unforgettable recorder. Although Jones had begun his musical training on saxophone at the age of 15 before moving to guitar, his performance here marks the first time he played a wind, reed, or brass instrument on a Stones record.

Working with the recorder -- a woodwind of such simplicity and conspicuously limited tonality that it's typically relegated to the hands of schoolchildren as a 'starter' instrument -- Jones somehow manages to coax forth a performance that combines surprising technical dexterity with devastating emotional force. Sounding more like a bard of the Welsh Moors conjuring the souls of spirits long departed than a scruffy rock musician, Jones adds an achingly sad Celtic mysticism to "Ruby Tuesday" that not only dovetails sympathetically with the piano and double-bass, but also modifies the plain text of Richards' lyrics. Even though it is said nowhere in the words, the breathy, mournful notes of Jones' recorder suggest to us that "Ruby Tuesday" hasn't just left, she's passed away.

With its achingly perfect instrumental arrangement (one that makes Jagger's vocal nearly superfluous -- the song is best heard in its widely circulating instrumental outtake form) and valedictory tone, "Ruby Tuesday" is the most uncharacteristic Rolling Stones classic this side of "Moonlight Mile," a wholly unaffected piece of melancholy that unwittingly subverts the Stones' carefully constructed image as heartless bad-boys. It also represents Brian Jones' finest musical contribution to the band, ironically made after he had all-but-abandoned his original instrumental role on guitar. It was key evidence of Jones' creative resurgence: with the band moving into studio-bound pop-rock, his multi-instrumental approaches would soon become critical to shaping the sound and vision of The Rolling Stones' music over the next year.

 

That is great you are using that for a quick way to play the song. I would really be interested if you or any of your band hear things differently. It is really tough to tell what is going on in that song due to the lack of a guitar high in the mix.

 

The 2002 Ludwig mastering of mono "Ruby" is not the correct original 45 mix. The 1989 Singles Collection features the correct 45 mix.

 

Nice catch -- had forgotten about that. Fixed.

 

It's also now corrected on 'Rolled Gold' and 'Grrr!'

 

Richards bowed and Wyman held the notes for the double bass part on Ruby Tuesday. The piano may have been played by Jack, but this footage suggests it might have been Brian.

Courtfield Road, london - January 1967.

 

They're all wrong, I think. The stereo version is different on the 2002 remasters, and the mono version is a fold down of that.

I have to admit that I'm sick to death of both of these tracks. It seems like no matter what album I play, they're both there. OK, not really. But close enough.

Part of the problem, too, is that I had already listened to Bowie's version of "Let's Spend the Night Together" (on Aladdin Sane) like 5 million times before I even owned a Stones record.

Actually, busting out "Ruby Tuesday" for Flashpoint was a welcome surprise.

 

I've edited to reflect the uncertainty, but the fact that Jones is playing this in January 1967 (at the time of the single's release, and long after its recording), suggests to me that it was Nitzsche. Notice how uncertain he seems of the part, and how different the style is from what's heard on the single. I'd love to believe it was Jones, but this evidence (if properly dated) makes me lean towards Nitzsche.

 

That, of course, is quite inane.
The song has a beautiful lyric and is wonderfully delivered.

 

To me the least compelling period of the band (until the mid 80s) starts with this single, and includes much of Between the Buttons (though I like Connection) and Flowers and We Love You/Dandelion. Much of it is pretty good music, but it doesn't contain any of the things I love about the Stones. I enjoy their work much more again starting with Satanic Majesties, which moves in a darker direction.

 

He's messing about at home with a camera crew and interviewer zipping around, not the same as multiple takes in a studio. It's essentially the same as the studio take. It's just 2 months later, (it's completely an Olympic Studios recording) and he could be playing it to show he played it on the record.

Keep in mind he did have piano lessons for 7 years.

Keith has commented on what Jack played on a lot, he's never mentioned Ruby Tuesday in relation to Jack or anyone for that matter. Surprising given how important the piano is to the song and recording.

But yeah, it's not certain who played the piano on the track. Closer listening does show it to be somewhat amateurish in it's dynamics etc though.

 

Very, very happy with what I came up with for this one. "Ruby Tuesday" is one of those songs that we've all heard so much over the years that I think it's hard to listen to with fresh ears and realize just how beautiful its music is, and I wanted to get that across.

Once more, I emphatically recommend the instrumental version of "Ruby Tuesday":

 

Great single. Notice how Jagger doesn't mention how he will satisfy the women, just that he knows she will satisfy him.

Love Ruby Tuesday despite the fact its been over played. A classic imo.

 

Neither of those feature "Jiving Sister Fanny," though. If you want fanny and ruby you gotta go with the 1989.

 

Last year's very nice Hyde Park Live rendition of "Ruby Tuesday" is Tim Ries' finest hour as a Stones sideman — his airy-light soprano saxophone, pound for pound, is the best take on that recorder part anyone's brought to the table since Brian Jones.

 

Cool clip - and I thought I'd seen 'em all at this point...guess not!

Whomever played the piano, unquestionably Nitzsche's never gotten enough credit for how much he contributed to the band's records. Their secret weapon in this period, really...

Interesting how the Stones and the Beatles with the contemporaneously recorded "Strawberry Fields" both incorporated flute-like sounds into their records at this juncture (the Beatles' being the canned mellotron sound of course). Certainly a similarity in mood to the two records - both have that plaintive sort of sadness, though "Strawberry" of course takes a darker turn with the edit into the 2nd section...

 

Of course the Beatles did it first with You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.

 

The Beatles record that "Ruby Tuesday" always puts me the most in mind of is actually "Yes It Is." There's a color connection at play -- "please don't wear red tonight" vs. "ruby tuesday" -- but more importantly there's a similarly yearning sadness and implicit sense of permanent loss hovering over both songs. Neither lyric ever spells it out, but they both have always struck me as being about dead lovers.

 

"I'll satisfy your every need/and now I know you will satisfy me"

 

Manfred Mann did it before both.