Edit 1b (instr.) for headphones. With a kind of transparent Stones & Jagger to help you sing along...
From the bootleg cd "Black Box" by Yellow Dog (cd YD047.)
Supposedly the lyrics were written by Brian Jones & Keith Richards, with the music written by Jones, but he was never credited.*
Single and album version recorded in November & December, 1966. Released as a US single on January 13, 1967 and went to #1 on the charts. Released as a double A side single in the UK also on January 13, 1967, reaching #3. Released in the US on the album "Between The Buttons" on February 11, 1967.
Recorder & piano: Brian Jones. Vocal harmony: Brian Jones and Keith Richards. Vocals, backing vocals & tambourine: Mick Jagger. Acoustic guitar: Keith Richards. Cello, bass: Bill Wyman. Drums: Charlie Watts. Jack Nitzsche: piano. Double bass: Keith Richards (bowing strings), Bill Wyman (fingers on fingerboard).
*
According to Mick Jagger: "That’s a wonderful song." "It’s just a nice melody, really. And a lovely lyric. Neither of which I wrote, but I always enjoy singing it." as told to Jann Wenner in 1995.
It’s safe to say that Brian Jones has composed the melody. Or at least, the major idea of it. On the other hand, Keith was probably the one to compose the lyrics or most part of it. They were both missing Linda Keith, that’s basically the inspiration to the song, by the way.
Marianne Faithfull has stated the same:
"I think in Brian’s state writing a song probably wasn’t possible. He could only do it through another medium, through Keith. I guess the closest he came to it was 'Ruby Tuesday', where his melancholy recorder wistfully carries that sense of irretrievable loss. 'Ruby Tuesday' was a collaboration between Keith and Brian. it’s one of the few cases where Mick had nothing to do with a Stones song, neither with the lyrics nor the melody - but he and Keith got the writing credit. Without Brian, there wouldn’t be a 'Ruby Tuesday'".
Still on Marianne, I’ve found this on line:
In one of the most telling episodes in Faithfull, her autobiographical collaboration with David Dalton, Marianne describes the moment in the studio when Jones first plays on recorder the beautiful lilting pastoral melody that would eventually become 'Ruby Tuesday'. Richards picks up on it and starts shaping it on the piano. Jones tells him that it’s a cross between John Dowland’s 'Air On The Late Lord Essex' and a Skip James blues. "Brian wanted everyone to say, 'That’s great Brian, wonderful! Good work!'"says Faithfull. "But of course nobody did." When it was released, as the flip side to 'Let’s Spend The Night Together', 'Ruby Tuesday' carried the standard Jagger-Richards songwriting credit. When they performed it on TV, Jones and Richards were sat together at the same piano stool, accentuating their physical and musical closeness. They would never be that close again." Rob Chapman.
Brian composed many sounds and melodies to Stones songs and for that reason capable of composing.
