Tears of a Clown - The Beat - MP3 instrumental karaoke

The Beat transformed a Motown mainstay into a two-tone party-starter in this 1979 cover of "The Tears of a Clown," originally written by Stevie Wonder, Hank Cosby, and Smokey Robinson and immortalised by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles for the Tamla Records label spin-off of Motown in 1967. For their version—the group's stonking debut single, no less—the Birmingham, England-formed ska upstarts got rid of the "The" and sped up the pace to a skanking-worthy beat, sonically immersing the tune in 1960s Jamaica. A tour de force of The Beat's live sets, following its release as a standalone single in 1978, "Tears of a Clown" was one of the highlights on the US release of The Beat's debut 1980 album, I Just Can't Stop It, and later included on their 1983 greatest hits collection, What Is Beat? In 2002, the original "The Tears of a Clown"—notable for its inclusion of bassoon—was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.