The 1971 Tax Exile That Drove the Stones to France and Created 'Exile on Main St.'

The exile doesn’t have a single catchy name—it’s simply the 1971 tax exile. After the British government raised the top income tax rate to 83% (and 98% on investment income), the Rolling Stones, like a few other rock millionaires, decided they’d rather leave than pay. So in early 1971, they packed up and moved to the south of France, where they rented the sprawling, leaking Nellcôte villa near Villefranche-sur-Mer.

That forced relocation directly shaped Exile on Main St. The album was recorded in the damp, chaotic basement of Nellcôte, with gear smuggled in, neighbors complaining, and everyone strung out or sleep-deprived. The title itself is a double pun: “main” as in the main street of the town of exile, and “main” as in a drug vein. The dislocated, desperate energy of the sessions—part party, part prison—became the sound of the record. Without the tax exile, you don’t get the grimy, wide-open feel that makes Exile the definitive Stones statement.