The ‘Ruby Tuesday’ Muse and Brian Jones’ Baroque Turn

The woman behind “Ruby Tuesday” is almost certainly Linda Keith, the model and Keith Richards’ girlfriend at the time. She’d left Richards to be with Jimi Hendrix, and Richards wrote the song as a bitter farewell to a free-spirited woman who “just can’t be tied down.” Other candidates float around—Chrissie Shrimpton, a groupie named Ruby—but Keith herself confirmed the connection in later interviews.

The baroque arrangement was a sharp left turn for the Stones in 1967. Brian Jones, eager to expand his role beyond guitar, played the recorder part—a fragile, Renaissance-like melody that gave the track its melancholy air. He also handled the piano, though Jack Nitzsche sometimes gets credit for it. The recorder, harpsichord-like chords, and strings signaled the band’s full embrace of psychedelia, ditching their blues-rock comfort zone for something more ornate and introspective.