Leave it to Lady Gaga to give one of the most famous faces in the world a maniacal makeover. On Wednesday morning (Sept. 25), the singer released a tantalizing 80-second preview of one of the songs from her surprise Joker: Folie à Deux companion album, Harlequin. “The Joker,” a rock-edged track that seems to be co-star Joaquin Phoenix’s theme song is accompanied by a video in which Gaga’s Harley Quinn takes a midnight stroll through Paris’ Louvre Museum for a bout of midnight mischief.
“There’s always a joker in the pack/ There’s always a lonely clown,” Gaga sings over the sound of subtle guitar as she meanders by the signature IM Pei-designed glass pyramid and dances down the steps with the Winged Victory of Samothrace sculpture in the background. Wearing a modest prairie dress, low-top Chuck Taylor gym shoes and polka dot tights, her hair colored red, Gaga (as Quinn), sings, “The poor laughing fool falls on his back/And everyone loves when he’s down/There’s always a funny man in the game/ But he’s only funny by mistake,” a succinct summary of tragic anti-hero Jack Oswald White’s killer clown persona.
With the whole place to herself at night, Gaga/Quinn takes aim with her finger guns and blasts away at priceless artworks as the song’s tempo and intensity rise to match her character’s sinister plans. “And everyone laughs at him, just the same/ They don’t see his lonely heart break,” she sings as her voice reaches a crescendo and Quinn ekes out a crooked smile and wave while taking in the Mona Lisa.
With the electric guitars cranking up and drums kicking in, Gaga wails, “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 the rule, but fate is the hand that I see/ The Joker is meeeee!!” as Harley pulls out a tube of lipstick and gives the most iconic painting of a smiling woman a new, Joker-worthy blood red Chelsea grin.
Satisfied with her work, Gaga walks away, her eye makeup starting to melt across her face as the guitars get louder and she repeats “the Joker is me,” while strutting through the darkened Louvre galleries. “There’s always a joker,” Gaga captioned the video preview, along with hashtags for the museum, the movie and the upcoming “Figures du Fou” exhibit at the Louvre. Not for nothing, the august institution is clearly all-in on the movie promo, as it changed the official image on its X account to the Joker-ized Mona Lisa lipstick smile.
The Figures Du Fou exhibition (which translates to Figures of the Fool), opens on Oct. 16 and is described as examining, “the omnipresence of fools in Western art and culture at the end of the Middle Ages, and attempts to parse the meaning of these figures, who would seem to play a key role in the advent of modernity. The fool may make us laugh, with his abundance of frivolous antics, but he also harbours a wealth of hidden facets of an erotic, scatological, tragic or violent nature. Capable of the best and of the worst, the fool entertains, warns or denounces; he turns societal values on their head and may even overthrow the established order.”
In other words, the Joker.
On Tuesday, Gaga surprised Little Monsters when she announced that the Harlequin album will drop on Friday (Sept. 27). On the LP’s cover, Gaga is depicted standing in a shower fully clothed, with the water causing her clown makeup to drip down her face as it does as the end of “The Joker” video.
On the back of a milk carton Gaga appeared to preview the 13-song album’s track list, which features some recognizable standards, including “Get Happy,” “That’s Entertainment,” “Oh When the Saints” and “World on a String.”
Gaga recently revealed that her upcoming, untitled seventh studio album is due out in February, with a lead single slated to drop next month. Joker: Folie à Deux is due in theaters on Oct. 4.
Watch “The Joker” preview below.