{"id":990670,"date":"2026-01-07T23:20:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=461267"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:20:23","slug":"the-stories-behind-every-song-in-joker-folie-a-deux-and-where-to-find-the-best-versions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/the-stories-behind-every-song-in-joker-folie-a-deux-and-where-to-find-the-best-versions\/","title":{"rendered":"The stories behind every song in Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux \u2014 and where to find the best versions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Back in 2022, Joker<\/em><\/a> <\/em>director Todd Phillips<\/a> announced plans for a sequel with an Instagram post<\/a> that revealed the title \u2014 Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em> \u2014 <\/em>but little else. When Lady Gaga joined the cast as Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn, the picture became clearer. It clarified again with the rumors that it would be a musical, though Phillips and others involved with the film played coy about this up to the premiere. Where the original Joker<\/em> looked to Martin Scorsese\u2019s Taxi Driver<\/em> and The King of Comedy <\/em>for inspiration, the sequel takes the shape of a jukebox musical drawing on a variety of 20th-century songs, including pop hits, old standards, and tunes from Broadway shows and movie musicals.<\/p>\n

As might be expected, given Joker<\/em>\u2019s grim, grimy version of realism, the musical numbers in Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em> are often ironic, a way to soundtrack the delusions of protagonist Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). Sometimes, they underline the action, as characters belt out boisterous songs while chaos erupts around them. Occasionally, though, Phillips plays it straight, letting a sad song serve a sad scene and a happy one express joy, however short-lived it might be.<\/p>\n

Neither approach works consistently, to the point where it\u2019s often unclear what the filmmakers want to accomplish via their musical homages. There isn\u2019t a bad song in the movie, however, and the eclectic choices help keep it unpredictable. And part of that unpredictability is the wide range of sources Phillips draws from, none of which are obvious directions for a dark drama. Here\u2019s where Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em>\u2019s most notable tunes came from and pointers to some of the renditions that inspired the sequel.<\/p>\n

\u2018We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)\u2019<\/h2>\n

Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux <\/em>opens with a sequence animated by Sylvain Chomet, the French writer and artist behind The Triplets of Belleville <\/em>and The Illusionist<\/em>. This spin on a classic Warner Bros. cartoon finds the Joker doing battle with his own shadow. Jackie (Brendan Gleeson), a guard at Arkham State Hospital, takes an intense interest in Arthur, the would-be clown doing time for multiple murders. But Jackie also likes to sing, and at one point, Joker\u2019s identity crisis gets a callback when Jackie reprises this song. It\u2019s a lonely lament in which the singer is left with only other aspects of himself for company, and it doubles as commentary on Arthur\u2019s deflated state as the film begins.<\/p>\n

This often-covered song became one of the biggest hits of 1940 twice: The influential vocal harmony group The Ink Spots took it all the way to No. 3 on the pop charts, as did Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, also hitting the No. 3 spot that same year with some help from a scrappy young vocalist named Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n

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