Ruby Horse I know of course, that it’s you,
Ruby Horse I ran your course, and I’m blue.
(black & blue)
I spent friday night with a fly-by-night,
she said, hold on tight,
she said, “Hold on tight”.
I’m a son of a gun, I’m a son of a gun
It’s a bad thing I’ve done….
Me and my mother’s only son.
Remember us? I do,
Funny me and funny you.
Oh the sun shone down like marmalade
and covered us like glue
Then she turned on me
with all honesty, me and Ruby Red,
We never went to bed.
That’s the truth of course
me and Ruby Horse, she
left too soon….
Underneath a bright new moon.
Ruby Horse I know of course that it’s you,
Ruby Horse I ran your course and I’m blue.
Oh Ruby Red I know you’re dead and I’m through.
Ha, ha, ha.
I’m revisiting “Ruby Red”, a story I wrote in 1992, to probably publish it through Lulu. It’s an odd experience, talking to myself when I was fifteen years younger.
The story was written because of, but not about, a relationship. It rolled out in three weeks of intensive typing in the summer. I was using Wordwise, a word processor on a ROM that slotted into the BBC Model B.
At the moment I’m just skimming through the files, taking out some of the formatting so I can apply styles to it later. I don’t know how much editing I’m going to do after that, I don’t really want to push aside my 22 year old self, no matter how stilted some of the descriptive passages sound to me now (I’ve always been quite good with dialogue, I think).
There are one or two things that have gone since I wrote the story. It’s been over a decade since I canoed and I can’t feel so carefree about just getting in a car and going for a drive any more. But there’s an awful lot that’s still recognisably me. I have a couple of near indestructible Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Kill Your Television” long sleeves, and I still love the song. The music from the early nineties has stuck with me and the 90s revival is making me a happy man. Most of all I still have an, as yet unrequited, thing for short redheads.