Songfacts®:

• Brandi Carlile wrote "The Joke" as a comment on the sociopolitical climate following the 2016 US presidential election.
  
  Let 'em laugh while they can
  Let 'em spin, let 'em scatter in the wind
  I have been to the movies, I've seen how it ends
  And the joke's on them
  
  Carlile explained to NPR that "there are so many people feeling misrepresented. So many people feeling unloved. The song is just for people that feel under-represented, unloved or illegal."
• Producer Dave Cobb encouraged Carlile to be vocally ambitious on this track. The singer explained to Billboard:
  
  Dave Cobb loves [Presley's] 'An American Trilogy' and wanted me to understand the emotion and intensity Elvis put into it when we were working on 'The Joke.'"
• This won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song at the 2019 ceremony, where Carlile also performed the song. By The Way, I Forgive You also won for Best Americana Album.
• The 2019 Right Behind You American Express ad features a little girl playing this song on her violin.
• In Carlile's mind, recording the album was a means to an end so she could get the songs out on the road, which made it hard for her to access her emotions in the studio.
  
  "I just didn't know how to show genuine emotion without the audience," she told Stereogum in 2021. "I didn't know how to lose myself in my vocal performances. I don't know if it's something I had unlearned or if I just didn't know, but by the end of the record, I was feeling really opened up spiritually, and it ended on 'The Joke.'"
  
  Carlile was disappointed that her spiritual breakthrough didn't occur until the album wrapped, so she decided to pick up where "The Joke" left off on her next album, Broken Horses, with the emotional opener, "Right On Time."
• Elton John is a huge fan of "The Joke." "I just love it," he remarked to The Guardian. "I've played it continuously. It's just the kind of song I could have written, quite Elton-ish."