The Joker
by Steve Miller Band
- 82
- BPM
- F major
- Key
- 7B
- Camelot
- 43
- Danceability
- 40
- Acousticness
In September 1990, more than 16 years after it first topped the American chart, "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band went to number one in the United Kingdom for two weeks. A television advertisement for the clothing company Levi's had brought it back. It also topped the charts in Ireland, New Zealand and the Netherlands. In Britain it caused controversy by keeping Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart" off the top spot.
At first the two were thought to have sold the same number of copies. That triggered a tie rule: the single that had most increased its sales over the prior week got the higher position, and "The Joker" had grown by 57 percent against 37 percent for "Groove." A rounding discrepancy turned up later. "The Joker" had won on merit anyway, 44,118 copies to 44,110.
The band released the song in October 1973 from its eighth album, The Joker, and it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974. The lyrics borrow from "Lovey Dovey," written by Ahmet Ertegun and Eddie Curtis, whose highest charting version was by the Clovers in 1954. The word "pompatus" came from a mishearing: Vernon Green, who wrote the Medallions' song "The Letter," had invented the word "puppetutes," and Miller heard it wrong.
The Joker runs at 82 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.93 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 732 ms. It is in F major, Camelot 7B, which shares its notes with D minor and mixes cleanly with Bb major and C major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.