Hear Joaquin Phoenix Cover Daniel Johnston And Duet With Lady Gaga On Joker: Folie à Deux Soundtrack

Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ musical sequel to his divisive 2019 hit Joker, is out today. It once again stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker, and this time Lady Gaga is on board as his Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn. A week ago Gaga released the companion album Harlequin, a collection of showtunes and standards inspired by her character in the film. (It’s the kind of corny theater-kid music that has traditionally repelled me, but for some reason I love it and have been listening to it all week. Getting older is weird.) But Harlequin is not the movie’s official soundtrack. That’s a whole separate album, also out today.

The Folie à Deux soundtrack does overlap significantly with Harlequin. Quite a few of the oldies on Gaga’s album appear here in darker, more doom-laden form. Phoenix sings some of them, including, obviously, “The Joker.” The pair duet on several songs, among them “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “Bewitched,” and the early Carpenters hit “(They Long To Be) Close To You.” There’s also Nick Cave sounding not entirely like himself on opening medley of “Slap That Bass,” “Get Happy,” and “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” and it all ends with Phoenix covering Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End.”

If any of this interests you, you can stream the Folie à Deux in full below. I’ll throw Hildur Guðnadóttir’s original score in there too.