B-side "I Want You" Recorded 1990 Length 4:07 | Released 1990 Genre Alternative rock Label I.R.S. Records | |
"Joey" is the ninth track from Concrete Blonde's third and most successful album Bloodletting. The song was released in 1990 and was written and sung by Johnette Napolitano. One interpretation is that the song is about a photographer (Joey Mas) who is in love with alcohol. Napolitano mentioned in her book Rough Mix that the song was written about her relationship with Marc Moreland of the band Wall of Voodoo (who would eventually die of kidney failure following a liver transplant).
It became the group's biggest hit, spending four weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and crossing over to pop radio, reaching number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it remains their only charting song on the latter chart.
The song was written in a cab on the way to a photo studio in Philadelphia; it was the last vocal recorded on the album due to Napolitano's reluctance to record the lyrics, which were hard for her to deal with.