Tumbling Dice | 1970s, Mick Jagger's original working lyrics.
Mick Jagger | “Tumbling Dice”, original working lyrics, c.1971–72
The only known working lyric manuscript for the Rolling Stones’ “Tumbling Dice” to have surfaced publicly, originating directly from the Exile on Main St. sessions and extensively revised by Mick Jagger during the final development of the song.
Typed on Rolling Stones Records stationery bearing the 1841 Broadway, New York address, with six lines subsequently added and revised by Jagger in black marker. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from James Spence Authentication confirming the autograph material as being in Mick Jagger’s hand.
The manuscript carries the alternative working title:
“Fever in the Funkhouse”
and represents a remarkable surviving document from the evolution of what became one of the defining songs on Exile on Main St.
“Tumbling Dice” developed over an extended period. Its musical origins can be traced to the earlier composition “Good Time Women”, before the song took shape during the Rolling Stones’ celebrated and chaotic sessions at Villa Nellcôte in the south of France in 1971. The basic track was recorded there before the band moved the unfinished album to Los Angeles, where recording and overdubbing continued at Sunset Sound and Jagger completed much of the remaining lyrical work.
The present sheets belong to this final phase of production. They were supplied to Jagger for use as working lyrics during the completion of the album, with Jagger subsequently adding six further lines in black marker. As such, this is not a later fair copy, souvenir or presentation manuscript, but a functional studio document used during the creation of the finished song.
That distinction is important. Jagger’s additions preserve the process by which “Tumbling Dice” was still being shaped as Exile approached completion, while the survival of the alternative title “Fever in the Funkhouse” provides an unusually tangible record of the song before its final identity had been completely fixed.
The provenance is exceptional.
The manuscript comes from the collection of Chris O’Dell, one of the most remarkable figures within the inner circles of British and American rock music during the late 1960s and 1970s. Having first worked at the Beatles’ Apple organisation, O’Dell subsequently became closely involved with the Rolling Stones and was present around the group during the Exile on Main St. period. She appears among the Stones and their entourage in the photographic artwork of the finished album itself.
According to the accompanying provenance, the manuscript was given to O’Dell by Mick Jagger and remained in her collection thereafter.
Working manuscript material relating to the Rolling Stones is notably scarce compared with the enormous volume of signed records, photographs and promotional material associated with the group. Contemporary lyric sheets that can be connected directly with the writing and recording of their major songs appear only infrequently. Searches of the principal public auction records have revealed no other working manuscript for “Tumbling Dice”, nor another comparable working lyric manuscript from Exile on Main St.
The rarity is particularly striking given the stature of the album. Released in 1972, Exile on Main St. has come to be regarded as one of the Rolling Stones’ greatest achievements, bringing together blues, country, gospel and rock and roll in a sprawling double album created between England, the basement of Villa Nellcôte and the studios of Los Angeles.
“Tumbling Dice”, released as the album’s lead single, became one of its defining songs. Keith Richards later recalled the prolonged development of the track, while Jagger described drawing upon gambling terminology as he developed the lyrics. The surviving manuscript therefore belongs to a particularly fluid moment in the song’s history, when the music already existed but its final lyrical form was still being worked out.
The six autograph lines have been independently authenticated by James Spence Authentication, one of the principal international specialists in autograph authentication.
More importantly, the manuscript retains a continuous connection with the world in which the album itself was created: Rolling Stones Records stationery, working text intended for the studio, Jagger’s own revisions, and provenance through Chris O’Dell, a member of the group’s immediate circle during precisely this period.
An exceptional Rolling Stones manuscript and an extraordinarily rare survival from the creation of Exile on Main St., preserving Mick Jagger’s working revisions to “Tumbling Dice” and the song’s developmental title, “Fever in the Funkhouse”.
