Song · Brandi Carlile
“The Joke” by Brandi Carlile
From the album By the Way, I Forgive You (2018)
“The Joke” by Brandi Carlile appears on 24 radio countdowns from 10 stations between 2017 and 2026. It was first released in 2018 on the album By the Way, I Forgive You. Its best result is #1 on the WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019, and it was voted number one on three countdowns in total. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #24 indie & aaa song of 2018, #57 indie & aaa song of all time and #104 of the '10s.
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"The Joke" arrived in November 2017 as the lead single from By the Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile's sixth album, and it started with a jab. Producer and co-writer Dave Cobb needled her that she hadn't had a vocal moment like "The Story" since "The Story" itself, and the remark nagged at her until this came out. Cobb also played her Elvis Presley's "An American Trilogy", and you can hear that slow, swelling grandeur in the way the song gathers strings, piano and drums before Carlile lets her voice tear wide open.
The words are meant to lift up the people society shoves to the margins. She wrote it with Cobb and Phil and Tim Hanseroth, Cobb and Shooter Jennings produced, and it won two Grammy Awards.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 12 | 90.9 The Bridge Kansas City, MO | 90.9 The Bridge Top 100 Songs of 2017 | 90 |
| 2017 | 43 | WFUV New York, NY | WFUV Top 90 Songs of 2017 | 90 |
| 2017 | 58 | WRNR 103.1 Annapolis, MD | WRNR Top 103.1 Songs of 2017 | 104 |
| 2018 | 3 | The Current Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN | The Current Top 89 Songs of 2018 | 89 |
| 2018 | 2 | WFUV New York, NY | WFUV Top 90 Songs of 2018 | 90 |
| 2018 | 39 | Exit 97.7 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY | WEXT Top 97 of 2018 | 97 |
| 2018 | 1 | WXPN Philadelphia, PA | WXPN Year in Review: Top 50 Songs of 2018 | 50 |
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