The Rolling Stones' song has a verse melody and a hook (a distinctive guitar riff) that were both absent in the Staple Singers' version.

In the August 1965 issue of Beat Instrumental, in reply to the question of "who plays the prominent figure on The Stones releases?

[24][25] In 1997, former Rolling Stones business manager Allen Klein, whose company ABKCO Records owns the rights to all Rolling Stones material from the 1960s, sued English rock band the Verve for using a sample of the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of "The Last Time" in their hit song "Bitter Sweet Symphony".

This led to Andrew Loog Oldham, who owns the copyright on the orchestral rendition that was sampled, also suing the Verve.

The Who announced in an advertisement for the single: "The Who consider Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have been treated as scapegoats for the drug problem and as a protest against the savage sentence imposed on them at Chichester yesterday, The Who are issuing today the first of a series of Jagger/Richard songs to keep their work before the public until they are again free to record themselves.

American country music singer Bobby Bare covered the song on his 1978 album, Sleeper Wherever I Fall.

An officially released Grateful Dead version from the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, ON, Canada on March 22, 1990, can be found on the album Spring 1990: So Glad You Made It.

[33] Australian singer John Farnham covered the song in 2002, as the lead single and title track of his 2002 album, The Last Time.