“Tumbling Dice” (originally called “Good Time Women”) is a single written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for the Rolling Stones’ 1972 double album Exile on Main St., and was the album’s lead single. The song, recorded in the basement of the chateau Villa Nellcôte in France, peaked at number 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 5 in the UK Singles chart. The lyrics tell the story of a gambler who cannot remain faithful to any woman. The music has a blues boogie-woogie rhythm and has been noted for its irregular lyrical structure and “groove”. “Tumbling Dice” has been performed in many of the band’s concerts since its premiere on 3 June 1972 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia. (More from Wikipedia)
As with the songwriting teams that I wrote about last month, early on writing the music and writing the lyrics were handled separately. From Wikipedia: “One of the patterns that the Jagger/Richards collaboration initially followed has been that [Mick] Jagger wrote most of the lyrics while [Keith] Richards focused on the music. Jagger discussed this in [a] 1995 interview with [Jann Wenner], whereby he explained how songs like ‘Get off of My Cloud’, ‘As Tears Go By’, ‘Wild Horses’, ‘Tumbling Dice’, and ‘Beast of Burden’ were created. Jagger has also pointed out that this pattern was more prevalent in the early 1960’s, while in their later collaborations their roles have overlapped more, with both of them contributing lyrics and music.”
(May 2015)
