Ruby Blue (album) - Songs

Songs

The opening track "Leaving the City" slowly builds up during the introduction and uses out of tune instrumentation and a repetitive chorus. Following "Sinking Feeling", which uses a beat constructed from clicking sounds, is "Night of the Dancing Flame", which combines synthesisers with 1920s jazz. It is written in waltz time and was compared to Stevie Wonder's work during his peak. After opening with noises such as rustling and coughing, the longest track "Through Time" proceeds into a ballad that was compared to those by Carole King. The fifth track "Sow into You" was released as the album's second single. The song uses a metaphor of rain and harvests to describe love and sex, atop a baroque pop brass arrangement. "Dear Diary" is a torch song mixing northern soul with disco music with the sounds of doorbells and telephones ringing.

The seventh track "If We're in Love" was released as the album's lead single. It is a downtempo song featuring a boogie swing rhythm and sharp brass parts, opening with phased vocals and closing with a call and response between brass and keyboard parts. "Ramalama (Bang Bang)", the eighth track, contains a chorus of onomatopoeic lyrics delivered over a tribal rhythm. The title track uses overdriven guitar parts and layers of overdubbed vocals. Its lyrics caution a woman who has become out of control and its title was chosen to contrast feelings of passion and melancholy. "Off on It", a more experimental song with an unsteady rhythm, precedes "Prelude to Love in the Making", an excerpt of less than one minute taken from "Love in the Making" on Sequins 2. The album closes with "The Closing of the Doors", a cabaret-style ballad driven by the piano.