Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town

[From the series, 'Know Your Popular Country-Themed Songs']


Written in 1969 during a bout of alcoholism and despair, Kenny Roger’s classic song juxtaposes an up-tempo backing with the tragic story of a crippled war veteran, unnamed, and his only companion, Ruby. The lyrics tell us little about Ruby, her physical dimensions, her nature and temperament, though most leading critics agree that the name Ruby would suggest either an elderly lady or a rescued circus chimp. Given her behaviour, I think it’s easy to deduce which one is accurate. Let’s begin.

You've painted up your lips
And rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby are you contemplating
Going out somewhere?

We are thrown right amongst the action with a startling image: an adult female chimpanzee sitting primly at an ornate civil-war armoire, adorning herself in makeup and curling her shining tresses, holding a pearl drop-earring loosely, perhaps, between her lengthy, painted fingers, and admiring herself in the reflected golden light of the falling sun. It’s a tragic, yet poignant image, and the narrators choice of word, “Contemplating,” (In the song pronounced “Contemplatin’” only serves to make it sweeter, and more bitter. We can almost see her lurid red lips, the dark roots of her peroxidised hair. The narrator’s question, inquiring, yet fearful of the answer, hangs in the air like the lingering odour of Chanel.

The shadow on the wall
Tells me the sun is going down
Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

A simple shack, maybe, with few adornments, besides her treasured armoire. Not even a clock on the wall with which our desperate narrator can tell the hour. He starts to plead with his companion, don’t do it, don’t take your love there, of all places. That town doesn’t understand you like I do. Here we have the exposition of the source of conflict in this very modern, but very classic, relationship. On the one hand this lonely man wants his only companion to be there for him. But how can he expect the monkey to abandon its primal urges? Would he ask of the rooster not to crow? The songbird not to sing? And would he expect the chimpanzee not to paint her face and seek the love of strangers? She’s only human … and yet … she’s not. Let’s continue.

It wasn't me
That started that old crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go
And do my patriotic chore

It is unclear which war our narrator is talking about. The war between Guangwu and Wan Yi during the Xia Dynasty, 2100–1600 BC, is widely thought by historians to be the “Crazy Asian War.” Yi’s forces dressed as ladies to lure Guangwu’s forces towards a trans-dimensional gateway. When they appeared again in 1912 they had not aged. And yet it’s unlikely that the narrator is talking about that war. It’s more likely he’s talking about a modern conflict, such as Vietnam, or the consumer electronics war of the 1980’s.

And yes, it's true that
I am not the man I used to be
Oh Ruby, I still need some company

This man has given up something of himself to be with this lusty chimp. Theirs is a relationship that is unconventional—illegal, perhaps—and he has had to change his identity. Whatever his sketchy past, he’s a man, and he needs “company.”

It’s hard to love a man
Whose legs are bent and paralysed
And the wants and the needs of a woman your age
Ruby I realize.

Ok, he’s disabled. This is an interesting development. He’s disabled, and this chimp was once, perhaps, his helper, bringing him his absinth, his pipe, his chicory. Over the years he has grown to love his chimp, some would say a little too much. He has come to love her so, so much that he now even thinks of her as a woman. What pathos. So he’s been paralysed, this man, possibly in the war, or from trying to perform some kind of difficult stunt.

But it won't be long I've heard them say ‘til I am not around

It is unclear who’s saying such things. Perhaps a jealous suitor is plotting against him. This man, though crippled, no doubt still has friends in the community.

Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

That refrain again.

She's leaving now cause
I just heard the slamming of the door
The way I know I've heard it slam
100 times before
And if I could move I'd get my gun
And put her in the ground

Murderous thoughts assail his mind. And why wouldn’t they? If you’d been in a crazy Asian war, had your legs busted up, and been cuckolded by an adult female chimpanzee, you might also feel aggrieved. If this woman keeps making a monkey out of me, he seems to say, I might just have to have her euthanized. And she better stop slamming that door, also.

Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

Oh Ruby for God's sake turn around

Turn around, Ruby. Just one more time, so that you can look into my eyes and see the love that’s still there for you, and so that I can look into yours and confirm for myself what I’ve so long expected: that the love I know still burns like a prairie blaze on a hot July night.

Don’t go, Ruby, don’t go to town.

Now that’s country music.