“Tumbling Dice” by The Rolling Stones

"Tumbling Dice" led the charge for Exile on Main St., the Rolling Stones' 1972 double album, arriving as its first single that April on Rolling Stones Records. It's Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at their most gloriously loose: a rolling blues groove with boogie-woogie in its bones, pitched at a tempo that musicians and scholars alike have puzzled over, as if the whole band were leaning back a hair behind the beat. Jagger plays a gambler who can't stay true to any one woman.

Jimmy Miller produced and even sat in on extra drums, Mick Taylor handled the bass, and Venetta Fields and Clydie King add backing vocals that push the whole thing toward church. The Stones have kept it in their shows ever since, and it has turned up on best-of lists from Vulture and Rolling Stone.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.