Tumbling Dice
Composers:
Mick Jagger &
Keith Richards
Recording
date: October
1970 & December 1971-March
1972
Recording
locations: Rolling
Stones Mobile Unit, Mick Jagger's home, Newbury,
England; Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
&
Sunset
Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer:
Jimmy Miller
Chief engineers: Glyn
Johns, Andy
Johns &
Joe Zagarino
Performed onstage:
1972-73,
1975-78,
1981-82, 1989-90, 1994-95, 1997-99, 2002-03,
2005-07, 2012-19, 2021-24


Probable line-up:
Drums: Charlie Watts & Jimmy Miller
Bass: Mick Taylor
Electric guitars: Keith Richards (incl. solo)
& Mick Jagger
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Harmony vocal: Keith Richards
Background vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,
Clydie King, Venetta Fields & Sherlie Matthews
Piano: Nicky Hopkins
Saxophone: Bobby Keys
Trumpet:
Jim Price
Mmm yeah
Women think I'm tasty, they're always trying to waste me
Make me burn
the candle right down
Baby,
baby
I don't need
no jewels in my crown
Cause
all you women is low down gamblers
Cheating like
I don't know how
Baby,
I'm no crazy
There's fever
in the fuck house now
This
low down bitching got my poor feet itching
Don't you know
the deuce is still wild?
Baby, I
can't stay
You've got to
roll me and call me the tumbling dice
Always
in a hurry, I never stop to worry
Don't see the
time flashing by
Honey,
got no money
I'm all sixes
and sevens and nines
Say
now, baby, I'm the rank outsider
You can be my
partner in crime
Baby, I
can't stay
You've got to
roll me and call me the tumbling dice
Roll me and call me the tumbling (come on, baby) dice
Oh my,
my, my, I'm the lone crap shooter
Playing the
field every night, every night
Baby, I
can't stay
You've got to
roll me and call me the tumbling dice
Roll me and call me the tumbling dice
Got to roll me
Got to roll me
Got to roll me - mmm yeah
Got to roll me
Got to roll me - yeah
Got to roll me (keep on rolling)
Got to roll me (keep on rolling)
Got to roll me (keep on rolling) - ah yeah
Got to
roll me - ...baby, call me the tumbling...
Got to roll me - ... dice, yeah
Got to roll me - roll me, baby, sweet little sugar
Got to roll me - now, yeah
Got to roll me - roll... now, now, now, now...
Got to roll me - oh darling now
Got to roll me - ... darling baby, oh
Got to roll me - come on, baby
Got to roll me - baby, all night
Got to roll me
TrackTalk
Keith and me
(wrote it). I wrote the lyrics. (He did the groove.)... It comes
back to that thing where I really don't remember who had the
melody or not, but it doesn't really matter. I don't really know
what people like about it. I don't think it's our best stuff. I
don't think it has good lyrics. But people seem to really like
it, so good for them.
- Mick Jagger, 1995
This was
done in the basement of my house, this grand Edwardian Villa
called Villa Nellcote in Villefranche in Cap-sur-mer (sic),
where we did all of Exile. I remember writing the riff
upstairs in the very elegant front room, and we took it
downstairs the same evening and we cut it. A lot of time when
ideas come that quick, we don't put down lyrics, we do what what
we call vowel movement. You just bellow over the top of it, to
get the right sounds for the track.
- Keith Richards, 1993
I know we
did that one fairly early on in France because I remember the
weather. The basic idea, as you can hear from Good Time Women, was
already there. But it took a while for it to turn into Tumbling Dice. We were
stuck for a good lyrical hook to go with this really great riff,
so we left it in abeyance for a bit. And then I think Mick came
up with the title Tumbling
Dice, although we may have got it from someone
else. Ha!
- Keith Richards, 2010
With Tumbling
Dice we worked on that for a couple of weeks at least,
just the basic track. I know we had a hundred reels of tape on
the basic track. That was a good song, but it was really like
pulling teeth. It just went on and on.
- Andy Johns, engineer
There must
have been at least 30 two-inch reels on Tumbling Dice.
I mean, Keith sat there one afternoon just playing the
reprise for about six hours. Just round and round and round
and round. Sitting in a chair with his legs up on something.
- Andy Johns, 2010
Charlie had
a hard time playing the out-section. You know, where it breaks
down before the end? He had a mental block on it.
- Andy Johns, 2010
Tumbling
Dice was written to fit Keith's riff. It's about gambling
and love, an old blues trick. I had a lot of friends at that
time who used to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend.
- Mick Jagger, 1993
Tumbling
Dice, there's an outtake I've found that has completely
different lyrics. It wasn't until we got to L.A. that I rewrote
them. The original lyrics were crap. So it was nothing to do
with the original experience of recording the album, if you see
what I mean.
- Mick Jagger, 2009
(T)hat's the
perfect tempo (for that song). Try to top that one up and you
lose the flow.
- Keith Richards, June
1994
(M)y
pet theory is that if you play a particular song long enough
onstage, then they mumble to one another, Oh, that's a good
song. It's like you've endorsed your own material simply
by playing it onstage.
- Mick Jagger, 1978, told
people are beginning
to appreciate the song
No, man. I
love Start
Me Up. I love Tumbling Dice.
- Keith Richards, 2012,
asked if he has a favorite riff
I really
loved Tumbling Dice. Beautifully played by everybody.
When everybody hits it, that's those moments of triumph.
- Keith Richards
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