By Tony Attwood
If you want an overall review of Bob’s book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song” there is one here. And of course, there is the option of reading Bob’s book, or one of the multitude of fulsome reviews of the book, across the internet.
But I am trying to do something different here, which is to provide a copy of each song, so if you are not familiar with the piece, you can listen to it. And then, because it is what I tend to do, I am also providing a few thoughts of my own as to why Bob picked this particular song, although of course, you don’t have to read them. You can just listen to the music. A list of the songs in the book with links to our reviews is at the end.
And what can I say about “Ruby are you mad”, except this is fun, it is crazy, and I don’t know how anyone can play like that. And in this regard, in terms of how one can do a performance, I include the bass player. Inded just listen to the bass…. for all the way through the two and a half minutes of the song, the bass player is just playing two notes, as a balance to the banjo part. At least until the song stops for a few seconds, after which the bass player is allowed to put in a few runs, just to make his life a bit more bearable, I guess.
It does show that one can have enormous fun with a simple idea, such as “how fast can you play the banjo?” and still make a piece of music that we might want to listen to.
Just to check that I had got the whole song, I also downloaded the lyrics from another site….
Ruby, Ruby Honey, are you mad at your man? I'm sittin' in the shade Where I shovel with a spade I'm diggin' in the ground's cold mine Oh Ruby, Ruby Honey, are you mad at your man? If you don't believe I'm right Just follow me tonight I'll take you to your shady so cold Oh Ruby, Ruby Honey, are you mad at Your man? Ruby, Oh Ruby, Ruby
And looking at those lyrics and listening to the song (which I must admit I had not heard until Bob selected it) I wondered is it really a “cold” mine and not a “gold mine”? But then I am not sure that it really matters. And “cold” does turn up again a couple of lines later. So it is probably me being English and not getting some American allusion.
But I did find another version of the song, which is rather fascinating too…
Previously in this series
- Ball of confusion
- Cheaper to Keep Her
- CIA Man – the Fugs
- Detroit City
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- Dirty Life and Times
- Detroit City
- Dirty Life and Times
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- El Paso
- I got a woman
- If you don’t know me by now
- I’ve always been crazy
- Jesse James and Po Boy
- Keep my Skillet Good and Greasy
- Little White Cloud that Cried
- Mac the Knife
- Money Honey
- My Generation and Desolation Row
- Nellie was a Lady
- Old Violin by Johnny Paycheck
- On the road again (save a horse)
- On the street where you live
- Pancho and Lefty
- Please don’t let me be misunderstood
- Poor Little Fool
- Poison Love
- Pump it up
- Ruby are you mad
- Saturday night at the movies
- Strangers in the Night
- Truckin
- Take Me from This Garden of Evil
- The Pretender
- The Whiffenpoof Song
- There stands the glass
- Tutti Fruiti (A wap bop a … etc)
- Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
- When
- Where or When
- Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me
- Without a song