Joy to the World

This article is about the Christmas carol. For other uses, see Joy to the World (disambiguation).

"Joy to the World" is a popular Christmas carol.

The scripture-based words are by Isaac Watts. The music was adapted and arranged by Lowell Mason from an older melody which was then believed to have originated from Handel , not least because the theme of the refrain (And heaven and nature sing...) appears in the orchestra opening and accompaniment of the recitative Comfort Ye from Handel's Messiah, and the first four notes match the beginning of the choruses Lift up your heads and Glory to God from the same oratorio. However, Handel did not compose the entire tune.

Well-known recordings

One of the most well known recordings of "Joy to the World" is an instrumental version by conductor Percy Faith. First recorded in 1954 on his "Music of Christmas" LP (Columbia CL 588), it was re-recorded in stereo in 1959 as Columbia 8176.

Commonly thought of as a Christmas song today, it was originally written to celebrate the second coming of Christ's reign here on earth. Read the lyrics carefully, and you will note there is nothing about Christmas, but rather a celebration of a sinless world that Christ's reign will bring.

The popular European group Boney M. covered the song in 1984 which was internationally released in 1986 on their record The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs.

John Rutter arranged the carol in the style of Handel and recorded this arrangement twice with the Cambridge Singers, for their Christmas albums Christmas Star (1983) and Christmas with the Cambridge Singers (1989). His pseudo-Handelian arrangement has also been recorded by other choirs including those of St. Paul's Cathedral and King's College, Cambridge.

The King's Singers introduced a new a cappella version of the song into their repertoire in 2008, arranged by their current first baritone Philip Lawson and due to be published in 2009 by Hal Leonard Corporation music publishers.

Michael Bolton sang a pop version of this song at Plácido Domingo's annual collaboration Christmas concert from Vienna in 1997.

Mariah Carey re-recorded this song for her 1994 album Merry Christmas. Carey's version, done in a dance-pop style, combined the chorus (with slightly altered lyrics) of the Hoyt Axton song "Joy to the World" (made popular by Three Dog Night) with the traditional Christmas song. Traditionally, only the 1st, 2nd, and last verses are sung, this is evident in the VeggieTales (part of A Very Veggie Christmas) and Disney Sing-Along versions. Recently, the Jonas Brothers recorded a version of this song called "Joyful Kings" for the 2008 Disney Channel Holiday album "All Wrapped Up".

Whitney Houston recorded the song for The Preacher's Wife: Original Soundtrack Album (1996).

"Joy to the World" was originally written by Isaac Watts not as a Christmas Carol but as a hymn glorifying Christ's Triumphant return at the end of the age not at His first coming as a babe born in a stable. It is based on Psalm 98. See [1].

Lyrics

Verse 1

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Verse 2

Joy to the Earth! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

Verse 3

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Verse 4

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Note the very first line of the song. While "The Lord is come" would be considered improper in modern-day English ("The Lord has come" should be used instead), it was grammatically correct when the song was first written in the early 18th Century.

Parodies and tributes

"Joy to the World, Our Teacher's Dead" is a schoolchildren's parody of this song.

In the popular sitcom Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen sings a parody of the song which caused wide uproar among the Christian community in the United States of America. Douglas Scott, the president of Life Decisions International, went so far as to send a letter to the president of CBS demanding an apology.

External links

• Free sheet music of Joy to the World for SATB from Cantorion.org