See Brandi Carlile’s Spellbinding ‘The Joke’ Video
Brandi Carlile has released the music video for “The Joke,” the powerhouse lead single from her new album By the Way, I Forgive You. The emotional video, shot in black and white by Danny Clinch, features close-up portraits of a rotating cast of women, men and children singing (and dancing) along to Carlile’s inspirational power ballad.
“‘The Joke’ pushed me,” Carlile recently told Rolling Stone. “It pushed my pride, it pushed me vocally, and it expanded my mind.”
Carlile composed the song near the end of recording sessions for her latest album only after being encouraged by producer Dave Cobb, who wanted the singer to write a song that contained a vocal performance as memorable as her 2007 breakout hit “The Story.”
“Dave kept suggesting that we should write a new song which was, quite frankly, getting irritating,” she says.
But on a day off from recording, Carlile went into the studio and got to work. “I had just met this little boy who was struggling in school, and a bunch of things were swimming around in my mind,” she says of the song’s inspiration. “There was a lump in my throat three times a day about this shit.”
By the Way, I Forgive You is out now and Carlile will launch an extensive North American tour on March 3rd.