Songs with the name Ruby

The name Ruby has left a real mark on popular song, usually attached to someone vivid and difficult to forget. The Rolling Stones gave the world “Ruby Tuesday” in 1967, a wistful, acoustic-flavored record built around a drifting free spirit who cannot be held down; its gentle chorus and melancholic melody make it one of the band’s most tender moments. That same year Johnny Darrell cut “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” a country weeper sung by a broken man pleading with his woman as she prepares to walk out the door. Kenny Rogers later made the song far more famous, but Darrell’s own version carries the original, lonesome weight.

Tom Waits offered “Ruby’s Arms” in 1980, a ballad of a soldier leaving his sleeping lover behind, sung over spare piano and bleary trumpet in that cracked, heartbreaking voice. Dion’s “Ruby Baby,” from 1963, is pure early-sixties pop exuberance, a doo-wop-rooted rocker driven by a bouncing beat and a swaggering vocal. Rancid’s “Ruby Soho,” from 1995, trades all that for buzzing punk guitars and a bittersweet, accelerated energy, turning the name into a flash of escape. The Kaiser Chiefs’ “Ruby,” from 2007, is a sleek, big-chorus indie anthem that turns the word itself into a stomping hook, proof that the name still carries a tune.