Some songs stop you in your tracks, they take you back to a summer or a moment that’s hard to forget; Joel Crouse’s “Ruby Puts Her Red Dress On” is one of those songs.
The song is off of Crouse’s new album, Even the River Runs. (Check it out here, if you haven’t already)
The song is packed with lyrics that anyone who is going through the death of a loved one can relate to.
Here are our Top 4 lyrics from the song:
All of her friends say she’s amazing, they can only imagine just how she feels. Because when she goes out, she wears her brave face, to hide the hurt inside she won’t reveal
We’ve written about it before on the site, but after you lose someone it’s really hard to let friends in — old or new ones. This means that a lot of friends only see the outside: how you’re powering through, checking things off a to do list left and right, getting through each day with a smile. Very few friends know how much effort you have to put into feeling amazing. Chances are the only friends who do know are the ones right on that boat with you – friends who you meet in support group or through Too Damn Young.
So when she’s alone, Ruby puts her red dress on. She sings along, while dancing to that old love song. It takes her back to when he used to tell her, “Baby, you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever known”
Because it’s so hard to explain to someone how you’re feeling after a significant loss, it’s so much easier to be selfish with your memories. I know that one of the things that carries me through an especially hard day is to look through old pictures or do something my grandmother used to love doing.
She keeps the room just how he left it, the book by the bed, his shirt on the chair. She does anything just to hold on to the pieces of a life that’s no longer there.
When someone dies, you become hyperaware of how they left things. Suddenly changes (even the smallest kind) might scare you or give you anxiety. As Crouse’s description of Ruby proves, you’re not alone in wanting to hold on to their favorite T-shirt or in not throwing away the book by the bed. When someone dies we lose the physical connection we had to them. We can no longer have two way conversations. Sometimes we hold on to the only things we have left.
The memory is strong when Ruby puts her red dress on.
We all have certain triggers that remind us of our loved one in the most powerful way possible. A red dress does it for Ruby. If you haven’t already, you’ll eventually come across something that does it for you.
Can you relate to Joel Crouse’s song? Do you relate to how he paints Ruby?
Image: Joel Crouse Twitter
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