How Jagger and Richards Went from Bedroom Collaborators to Separate Contributors on Exile on Main St.

In the early 1960s, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote songs in the same room, often finishing each other’s lines over a shared guitar. By the time they started work on Exile on Main St. in 1971, the partnership had become more modular. Keith would build the musical foundation—riffs, chord sequences, basic arrangements—while Mick often added lyrics and melodies later, sometimes after the basic track was already cut. The album was recorded in the basement of Keith’s French villa, Villa Nellcôte, which physically separated the band into shifts: Keith and the rhythm section jammed all night, and Jagger would appear in the morning to shape the chaos into songs.

The division of labor on Exile is specific enough to trace. “Tumbling Dice” started as a Keith instrumental called “Good Time Women”; Jagger rewrote the lyrics completely, turning it into a gambling-and-women metaphor. “Rip This Joint,” on the other hand, is almost all Jagger’s rockabilly energy—Keith admitted he just followed the piano. “Sweet Virginia” was Keith’s country-blues idea, with Jagger contributing the harmonica and vocal phrasing. Keith often said that Exile was the last record where they truly improvised together, but by that point “together” meant passing ideas through a half-built basement tape machine, not sitting knee-to-knee.