How 'Voodoo Lounge' Brought The Stones Back to the Blues, and the Outtake That Later Became 'Tumbling Down'

After the massive stadium tour and polished, synth-heavy production of Steel Wheels (1989), the Rolling Stones needed to reset. For Voodoo Lounge (1994), they deliberately stripped things back—recording at Ron Wood’s Irish estate and in Dublin, working with producer Don Was, who pushed for live takes and a rawer, bluesier sound. The result was an album that leaned harder into the band’s Chicago and Delta roots, trading layers of synthesizers for organ, slide guitar, and harmonica.

One outtake from those sessions, “Tumbling Down,” didn’t make the cut for Voodoo Lounge. But the band liked the riff enough to revisit it three years later. It was reworked, given new lyrics, and released as the closing track on 1997’s Bridges to Babylon—a darker, more brooding version that kept the original blues skeleton but added Middle Eastern-tinged strings and a clattering beat.