Singled Out: Molly Kruse's Ruby

Acclaimed music star Molly Kruse recently released her self-titled EP and to celebrate we asked her to share the story behind her single "Ruby". Here is the story:

A few years ago, I encountered a little girl who didn't have the easiest time at home; her family was incredibly dysfunctional and both her, and her siblings, suffered at the hands of the parents unwitting abandonment and neglect. Watching her story unfold before my eyes was heartbreaking. About a year later, I was reflecting on the experience and realized how much the girl's story had affected me, primarily because it had reminded me of the dysfunction and pain from my early childhood years. As such, a song - featuring mainly her story and a little bit of mine - was bursting to be written.

A week previous to composing "Ruby", I had started playing around with a bit that became the "hey-yay" harmonies, and I loved the cadence and off-beat rhythm of them. One night, I started vocally improvising on the line, stacking more and more harmonies on top of what I'd initially written, and then the melody and song structure flowed out of me over the next few hours. I had already written pages of lyrics about the situation, so after I had the main vocal line, I began pairing lyrics to it. I chose "Ruby" as the title character's name because I was able to make so many detailed, poetic comparisons to precious gems and jewels - and then combine those parallels with various colors and flowers. This gave me the freedom to paint a pretty rich lyrical canvas.
I initially wrote "Ruby" in a country/jazz style, but when we got into the studio, we rearranged a couple of stanzas and pushed it into the soulful, alt-folk pop style you hear now. We started with acoustic and electric guitar, drums, percussion, and bass, and then later added on some lush layers of banjo, guitar, piano, and organ.

I haven't kept in contact with "Ruby", but I hope the song does justice to her story and experience. You can download the track here, stream it here, or watch the video here. Thanks for reading, and hope you all enjoy the track!

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