Watch The Rolling Stone’s Stunning 1972 “Tumbling Dice” Performance

Rolling Stones’ double album Exile on Main St. was a challenging one for the band to create for various reasons. They left England for some time to evade the large taxes that they had to pay during that time, and moved to France. Sleeping schedules were pushed through in the morning since the nights were used for recordings. Cramped in a musty basement that Keith Richards rented, they tried their best to finish songs with whoever members show up in the sessions. And for some reason after its release, Exile wasn’t well-received upon by many.

But they did have a light at the end of the tunnel. “Tumbling Dice,” the lead single of the album, was critically and commercially successful. The song was born out of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger’s songwriting partnership, and had a boogie-woogie and blues rhythm that’s quite distinctive and unique in comparison to other Stones’ hits. On the rarest of occasions, Jagger also played guitar here.

The lyrics were written by the frontman, who doesn’t know how to play dice, but is quite familiar with its jargons. Asking the help of his housekeeper who is a dice player, she helped the singer develop the core theme of the song, which was about a gambler who cannot remain faithful to any woman. In US charts, it peaked at no. 7, but its popularity became more evident in European countries.

In the German show named Beat Club, the band were invited to perform “Tumbling Dice.” Fueled with the same energy as any other Stones’ show, the band’s cohesive sound makes the video more flourishing to watch. You cannot miss out on this one!

Watch it below.