"Karma Chameleon" is a song by British New Wave band Culture
Club, featured on the group's 1983 album
Colour by Numbers. The song spent three weeks at number
one on the US Hot 100 in 1984, becoming the group's biggest hit
and only US number one. "Karma Chameleon" hit number one in
sixteen countries worldwide. In the group's home country, it
became the second Culture Club single to reach the top of the
UK singles chart, where it stayed for six weeks in September
and October 1983, and became the biggest-selling single of
1983.
In an interview, Culture Club frontman Boy George explained:
"The song is about the terrible fear of alienation that people
have, the fear of standing up for one thing. It's about trying
to suck up to everybody. Basically, if you aren't true, if you
don't act like you feel, then you get Karma-justice, that's
nature's way of paying you back."
The prominent harmonica part was played by Judd Lander, who
had been a member of Merseybeat group The Hideaways in the
1960s. The song was originally to be called "Cameo Chameleon".
The band were recorded in interviews in late 1983 stating this
was to be the title of their next single.
Likely because of the lyric "I'm a man without conviction,"
and the chorus, which repeats the word "chameleon," "Karma
Chameleon" has been used by several politicians in political
ads. In 2006, Britain's Labour Party used "Karma Chameleon" as
the theme song for a series of political advertisements against
Conservative party leader David Cameron in the 2006 UK
Elections. Also, during the 2010 U.S. senate race in
Pennsylvania, Republican Pat Toomey used the song as backing
music for his video "Happy Anniversary Arlen Specter!" as a way
to criticize a sitting Senator from Pennsylvania and
recently-turned Democrat Arlen Specter.
The song won Best British Single at the 1984 Brit
Awards.
The "Karma Chameleon" music video was filmed at Desborough
Island in Weybridge during the summer of 1983. According to
caption, the video is set in Mississippi in 1870, and depicts
people in colourful costumes, including dancers in "red, gold
and green", waiting on a riverbank. Boy George is dressed in a
colourful costume and is depicted singing the title song. A
pickpocket is seen wandering through the crowd.
A riverboat, "The Chameleon", arrives and people board. A
game of cards takes place, as Boy George continues to sing in
the background. The pickpocket is discovered cheating and is
forced to walk the plank. Throughout the video, Blacks and
Caucasians are depicted singing and dancing together.
The boat used in the video belongs to Turk Launches of
Kingston-upon-Thames, and it is still in use, mainly on the
Kingston to Hampton Court route during the summer months.