"The Joker" | ||||
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Single by Steve Miller Band | ||||
from the album The Joker | ||||
B-side | "Something to Believe In" | |||
Released | October 1973 [1] | |||
Studio | Capitol (Hollywood) [2] | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length |
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Label | Capitol | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | Steve Miller | |||
Steve Miller Band singles chronology | ||||
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Official video | ||||
"The Joker" on YouTube | ||||
"Take the Money and Run"/"The Joker" (1983,double A-side,live) | ||||
![]() Cover of the 1983 live single | ||||
Steve Miller Bandsingles chronology | ||||
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Steve Miller Bandsingles chronology | ||||
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"The Joker" is a song by American rock band Steve Miller Band from their eighth studio album, The Joker (1973). Released as a single in October 1973,the song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974 and reached the top 20 in Australia,Canada,and the Netherlands.
More than 16 years later,in September 1990,"The Joker" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks after being used in "Great Deal",a television advertisement for clothing company Levi's,and caused controversy for keeping Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart" off the number-one spot. This reissue of "The Joker" also topped the Irish Singles Chart,the New Zealand Singles Chart,the Dutch Nationale Top 100,and the Dutch Top 40.
Miller borrowed from the hit song "Lovey Dovey",which shares the lyric,"You're the cutest thing that I ever did see / I really love your peaches,wanna shake your tree / Lovey dovey,lovey dovey,lovey dovey all the time". Ahmet Ertegun and Eddie Curtis wrote the song,and the Clovers had the highest charting version in 1954. [3]
It is one of two Steve Miller Band songs that feature the nonce word "pompatus". The first line of the lyrics is a reference to the song "Space Cowboy" from Miller's Brave New World album. The following lines refer to two other songs:"Gangster of Love" from Sailor and "Enter Maurice" from Recall the Beginning...A Journey from Eden . The line "some people call me Maurice / 'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love" was written after Miller heard the song "The Letter" by the Medallions. In "The Letter",writer Vernon Green made up the word puppetutes,meaning a paper-doll erotic fantasy figure; [4] however,Miller misheard the word and wrote pompatus instead.
Cash Box said that "The Joker" "is going all the way to become [Miller's] most successful release ever." [5] Record World called it "a smooth piece that is highly reminiscent of Van Morrison" and that "could establish Miller as a potent AM act." [6]
"The Joker" topped the UK Singles Chart upon its reissue in 1990 despite selling exactly the same number of copies as that week's number-two single,"Groove Is in the Heart" by Deee-Lite. Due to a ruling that the higher position should go to the single that had increased its sales most over the week,"The Joker" controversially secured top spot,having grown its sales by 57% compared to Deee-Lite's 37%. It later transpired that a rounding discrepancy had initially caused the tie,with "The Joker" topping the charts on merit by 44,118 to 44,110 copies. [7]
7-inch single (1973)
7-inch single (1983 –live version)
7-inch single (1990)
12-inch maxi (1990)
CD maxi (1990)
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
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Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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New Zealand (RMNZ) [37] | 3× Platinum | 90,000‡ |
Sweden (GLF) [38] | Gold | 25,000^ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [39] | Gold | 400,000‡ |
United States (RIAA) [40] | 6× Platinum | 6,000,000‡ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
American reggae singer Shaggy and Barbadian singer Rayvon's 2001 song "Angel" samples the bassline of the song. [41] It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending March 31, 2001. [42]
English musician Fatboy Slim covered "The Joker" and released it as a single on February 28, 2005. [43] This version reached number 32 on the UK Singles Chart and number 29 in Ireland. [44] [45]
"Wicked Game" is a song by American rock musician Chris Isaak from his third album Heart Shaped World (1989). It was released as a single to little attention in July 1989 but became a sleeper hit when Lee Chestnut, an Atlanta radio station music director who loved David Lynch films, began broadcasting it after hearing it in Lynch's film Wild at Heart (1990). The song quickly became an American top 10 hit in March 1991, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also became a No. 1 hit in Belgium and reached the top 10 in several other countries.
"Groove Is in the Heart" is a song by American dance band Deee-Lite, released in August 1990 by Elektra as their debut and lead single from their first album, World Clique (1990). Written and produced by the band, it was a hit in many countries, reaching number-one in Australia and on both the Canadian RPM and US Billboard dance charts. Today it is widely recognized as a classic of its genre. It was accompanied with a psychedelic 60s-themed music video directed by Hiroyuki Nakano.
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"Angel" is a song by Jamaican reggae artist Shaggy featuring additional vocals from Barbadian singer Rayvon. Sampling the 1973 song "The Joker" by American rock band Steve Miller Band and interpolating the 1967 song "Angel of the Morning" written by Chip Taylor, it was released to radio on 9 January 2001 as the follow-up to Shaggy's international number-one hit, "It Wasn't Me". "Angel" also proved to be successful, reaching number one in 12 countries, including Australia, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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Antonio "Tony" Terry is an American soul/new jack swing singer and actor from Washington, D.C., who had several R&B hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is best known for his 1991 single "With You" which peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 that same year.
"Abracadabra" is a song by American rock group the Steve Miller Band, written by Steve Miller. The song was released as the first single from the 1982 album of the same name that year. In the U.S., it spent two non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the biggest hit of Steve Miller's career to date, as well as their last US top 40 hit.
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