Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town — Kenny Rogers
There’s no genre of songs I enjoy more than protest songs. And there’s no sub-genre I enjoy more than protest songs that don’t sound like protest songs.
I mean, I love angry young men and women bashing away at a guitar and singing about all the wrongs in the world they’d like to right as much as the next person. I enjoy their passion and respect the channelling of their voice and conscience into a form of art which asks questions far too many people would prefer to avoid thinking about.
Indeed, my favourite song of all time is Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction”, written by PF Sloan, which does that better than any other song I’ve ever heard, and which could be sung with only minor changes to the lyrics and still be true today.
But a more subtle protest song can get into places more overt protests can’t.
One such song is “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”. Its innocuous “country shuffle” accompaniment and deliberately understated emotions gets into ears which would turn off the radio or change stations in a split second if a more overt protest song came on.
The first version of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” I heard was by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition, but the song had been around for a few years before that.
