THE JOKER
“The Joker” is a song by the Steve Miller Band from their 1973 album The Joker. The song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974. More than 16 years later, in September 1990, it reached number one in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks after being used in an advertisement for Levi’s, thus holding the record for the longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers. The first line of the lyrics is a reference to the song “Space Cowboy” from Miller’s Brave New World album. Following lines refer to two other songs: “Gangster of Love” from Sailor and “Enter Maurice” from Recall the Beginning . . . A Journey from Eden. (More from Wikipedia)
With their album The Joker (1974), Steve Miller Band showed a major shift in the music – though they had kept trying new things all along – but this also gained them Top Ten singles and strong album sales that had eluded them with their earlier work. Perhaps to acquaint his new listeners with their earlier work, the opening verse of the title song “The Joker” – “Some people call me the space cowboy / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love / Some people call me Maurice / ’Cause I speak of the pompatus of love” – cited songs and lyrics from their previous albums; “Gangster of Love” for instance is on the Sailor album. Steve Miller Band is continuing to release albums – about a dozen since this one.
(June 2014)
