It was released worldwide as the lead single from the band's 1972 double album Exile on Main St. on 14 April 1972 by Rolling Stones Records.

A product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership, the song contains a blues and boogie-woogie-influenced rhythm that scholars and musicians have noted for its unusual tempo and groove.

Several artists have covered "Tumbling Dice", including Linda Ronstadt, whose version – sung from a female perspective – appears on her 1977 album Simple Dreams.

According to drummer Charlie Watts, "a lot of Exile was done how Keith [Richards] works", which meant playing songs dozens of times, letting them "marinade" [sic] and repeating the cycle.

[5][6][7] It shared a similar blues, boogie-woogie rhythm with "Tumbling Dice"[8][9] but heavily emphasised Ian Stewart's piano work,[9] had different lyrics and was incomplete.

[16][17][5][nb 1] In the liner notes to Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones, Richards stated, "I remember writing the riff upstairs in the very elegant front room, and we took it downstairs the same evening and we cut it.

According to music journalist Bill Janovitz, it was "not pure kismet" that Jagger thought to speak to the housekeeper, saying he was "consciously turning over rocks, looking for something specific".

[20] Music critic Bill Janovitz credits the song's "perfect tempo", "slight drag" and "shuffle" with creating that groove.

[24] It was acknowledged forty years after the release of "Tumbling Dice" that Miller played the last part of the song, right as the coda begins, because Watts was having trouble with it.

"Tumbling Dice" was the only Rolling Stones song where Watts overdubbed a second drum track over the original, creating a bigger sound.

[32] The song is the fifth track on Exile on Main St..[33] On 21 May 1972, Top of the Pops broadcast a film of the Stones rehearsing "Tumbling Dice" in Montreux for their 1972 tour.

Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn asserted it "features marvelously sensual guitar work by Richards"[55] and that it should rank with "Satisfaction", "Street Fighting Man" and "Honky Tonk Women" "as one of the Stones' classic concert numbers".

Music critic Jack Garner asserted in a review for Courier News that the song featured a "marvellous tempo".

[62] Shipley felt the song has an "irresistible singalong energy", describing the "breakdown and buildup into the final 'you got to roll me' refrain" as "sublime".

[58] Garner agreed, stating in a review for Courier News that the lyrics contained "wonderfully sexy double entendre[s]".

[63] Kaye considered the single to be "a cherry on the first side" of Exile and the only song on the album that made "real moves towards a classic".

[61] David Marchese wrote for Vulture that the song "achieves choogle nirvana", expressing surprise that despite a "near-consensus" that Exile on Main St. was the best Stones album, it did not produce any other big singles.

[66][67] According to Janovitz, Rod Stewart "so coveted" the song that he took a tape of it into his Foot Loose & Fancy Free (1977) sessions "to play to the band he had assembled to record "Hot Legs".

[104] Cover versions of "Tumbling Dice" have been recorded by other artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Pussy Galore and Keith Urban.

In an interview with Hit Parader magazine, she said that her band played "Tumbling Dice" for sound checks, but nobody knew the words.

Jagger thought Ronstadt should sing more rock and roll songs, suggested "Tumbling Dice", and wrote out the lyrics for her.

Always think I'm crazy.Produced by Peter Asher and released by Asylum Records as a single in the spring of 1978, Ronstadt's version peaked at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Among those were Linda Ronstadt's cover of "Tumbling Dice", which Rosen described as "a song about rape written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards".

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, music critic Randall Roberts referred to the quality of their version as if "it was recorded in the tank of a Lower East Side toilet".

For the performance, he recruited long-time Rolling Stones' keyboardist Chuck Leavell in an effort to add "some authenticity to his version".