Although "The Last Time" is credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the song's chorus is identical, in melody and lyrics, to "This May Be The Last Time", a gospel song recorded in 1954 by the Staple Singers which itself was an arrangement of the first part of a sermon recorded by Reverend J.M.Gates in 1926 titled "You May Be Alive, You May Be Dead, Christmas Day". Luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time, the Rolling Stones' song has a verse melody and a hook (a dsitinctive guitar riff) that were both absent in the Staple Singers' version. Phil Spector, whose "Wall Of Sound" approach can be heard on the recording, assisted with the production. The Cash Box magazine described it as "a raunchy, hard-driving romantic blueser about a twosome who are destined to split up". "The Last Time" reached the no.1 position in United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.