Sérgio Santos Mendes (born Niteroi, 11 February 1… Read Full Bio ↴See Sérgio Mendes.
Sérgio Santos Mendes (born Niteroi, 11 February 1941) is a Brazilian musician. Born the son of a physician in Niteroi, Brazil, Mendes attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late-1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was taking off. Mendes played with Antonio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor), and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderly and Herbie Mann and played Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records. When sales were tepid, he replaced his Brazilian born vocalist Wanda Sa with the distinctive voice of Chicago native Lani Hall (who learned Mendes' Portuguese material phonetically) and switched to Herb Alpert's A&M label and released Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. (Hall would later marry Alpert). The album ultimately went platinum based largely upon the success of the single Mas Que Nada and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured regularly. Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably Mas Que Nada) met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar nominated Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in March 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie, and Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles, "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair." Though he continued to enjoy adult contemporary chart successes with Brasil '66 through 1971, he would not experience the mainstream chart hits he enjoyed in 1968 until his comeback album in 1983 generated the biggest single of his career, "Never Gonna Let You Go." However, from 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world, enjoying immense popularity worldwide and performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for both President Johnson and President Nixon.
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-70s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. (This disparity became a Seinfeld in-joke.) His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974, followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. He has released over thirty-five albums, and still plays his bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. His newest album, Timeless released in 2006, featured Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, Q-Tip, Justin Timberlake, and Pharoahe Monch.
(Text taken in whole from the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Mendes on March 30, 2006)
The Joker
Sergio Mendes Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The joker
There's always a joker in the pack
There's always a lonely clown
The poor laughing fool falls on his back
And ev'ryone laughs when he's down
There's always a funny man in the game
Ev'ryone laughs at him, just the same
They don't see his lonely heart break
No, they don't care as long
As there is a jester, just a fool
As foolish as he can be
There's always a joker, that's a rule
But fate deals the hand and I see
The joker is me
There's always a funny man in the game
But he's only funny by mistake
Ev'ryone laughs at him, just the same
They don't see his lonely heart break
No, they don't care as long
As there is a jester, just a fool
As foolish as he can be
There's always a joker, that's a rule
But fate deals the hand and I see
The joker is me
There's always a funny man in the game
But he's only funny by mistake
Ev'ryone laughs at him, just the same
They don't see his lonely heart break
No, they don't care as long
As there is a jester, just a fool
As foolish as he can be
There's always a joker, that's a rule
But fate deals the hand and I see
The joker is me
The joker is me
(The joker)
The joker is me
(The joker)
The joker is me!
In Sérgio Mendes's "The Joker," the lyrics delve into the theme of loneliness and the masks people often wear to conceal their inner pain. The song starts off with the line, "there's always a joker in the pack," implying that there is always someone who is willing to put on a show and entertain others, even if it means being the butt of the joke. The second stanza emphasizes the fact that these "funny men" or "jesters" may not actually be happy themselves, instead using humor as a defense mechanism to cope with their pain. The line "they don't see his lonely heart break" captures the idea that others may not notice or care about the inner turmoil of those who are always joking around.
In the final stanza, the song takes a turn when the singer admits that they themselves are the joker. This revelation adds a level of vulnerability to the lyrics, making clear that even the person who seems to be entertaining and carefree on the surface can have their own struggles with loneliness and sadness.
Overall, "The Joker" offers a thought-provoking commentary on the complicated nature of human emotion and the ways in which people can use humor as a shield. The song highlights the fact that even those who seem to be the happiest and most lighthearted can be internally struggling with pain.
Line by Line Meaning
There's always a joker in the pack
There's always someone who brings amusement and laughter to a group
There's always a lonely clown
However, this individual is often isolated and seen as an outcast
The poor laughing fool falls on his back
The person who tries to make others happy often becomes the target of ridicule and mockery
And ev'ryone laughs when he's down
Instead of showing compassion, people join in and make fun of the person's misery
There's always a funny man in the game
There's always a person who can make others laugh
But he's only funny by mistake
However, this individual doesn't plan to be funny, it's just the way he is
Ev'ryone laughs at him, just the same
Despite his unintentional humor, others still use him as a source of entertainment
They don't see his lonely heart break
The person's emotions and feelings are ignored, and nobody takes his pain seriously
No, they don't care as long
As long as there's someone to make them laugh, they don't need to care about anything else
As there is a jester, just a fool
As long as there's someone to be the entertainment, even if they are being made fun of, people will be content
As foolish as he can be
People will still find the person amusing, no matter how dim-witted he is
There's always a joker, that's a rule
It's inevitable that there will always be someone who is seen as a source of humor
But fate deals the hand and I see
However, in the end, one can become the person that was once ridiculed
The joker is me
The person who once brought laughter is now the one who is the subject of it
Contributed by Ella J. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
kimmr100
Wow, what a classic, Sergio Mendes & Brasil at their best, with fantastic vocal delivery by Lani and superb back-up by the group. The clarity of this recording is excellent - thank you for posting.
Hortensia G.O.
Todas las canciones de este álbum me encantan!!!♥️♥️
Gracias por subirlas!!!👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Nicholas Bintner
I've loved this album for years but recently I've been asking myself, "how is this not in the Joker movie?"
Nicholas Bintner
@Aaron Morris i feel that i just think it would've been awesome
Luis Felipe Aros Morales
That would be great! Anyway the movie has a great soundtrack too
Jazz and Beyond
The flip B side side to the 45rpm which had on the A side, "Mas Que Nada." Sergio's funky blues infected piano playing is clearly influenced by Horace Silver. Lani Hall on vocals crushes the ending!
Mischief Memoirs
this is gold. I want use this in a film.
Lyndell Jones
I love how she sings this. Feeling and power. She clobbers than ending. Love it.
Enrique Iturralde Avila
Lani Hall and Karen Phillips best singer ever
yellowbrickroadss1
Your clip has the best sound so far, well done.