Joy to the World

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This article is about "Joy to the World", the Christmas carol. For the other songs by the same title see Joy to the World (disambiguation).

"Joy to the World" is one of the best-known and best-loved of Christmas carols. It contains a message of joy and love replacing sin and sorrow. The hymn is significant for its widespread use throughout Christian denominations and for the musical stature of the people who created it.

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.

1 Lyrics
2 Parodies
3 Mariah Carey version
- 3.1 Charts

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Lyrics

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 heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

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, far as, the curse is found.

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, wonders, of His love.

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Parodies

Like many well-known songs this song has frequently been parodied. A parody frequently heard amongst schoolchildren is Joy to the World, Our Teacher's Dead.

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Mariah Carey version

{{Single infobox | Name = Joy to the World | Cover = JTTW.jpg | Artist = Mariah Carey | from Album = Merry Christmas | Released = 1994 | Format = CD single (Australia) | [ Recorded = ] | Genre = Pop | Length = 4:20 | Label = Sony | [ Writer = ] | Producer = Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff

| Chart position =

#32 (Australia)

| Last single = "Miss You Most (at Christmas Time)"
(1994) | This single = "Joy to the World"
(1994) | Next single = "Jesus Born on This Day"
(1994) }} American singer Mariah Carey co-produced and co-arranged a cover of "Joy to the World" with Walter Afanasieff for her fifth album, Merry Christmas. The arrangement of the cover contains interpolations of an unrelated song named "Joy to the World" (1971), which was written by Hoyt Axton and made famous by Three Dog Night. In Carey's version of "Joy to the World", Axton's song serves as the bridge between the traditional carol. It is Carey's most-performed traditional Christmas carol, and an altered version of Carey and Afanasieff's arrangement of the carol was recorded by Michael Bolton for his Christmas album This Is the Time.

"Joy to the World" was released as the third single from Merry Christmas in December 1994 (see 1994 in music) and again in 1995 (see 1995 in music), but on a strictly promotional basis in most countries. In the U.S., "Joy to the World" was given above average promotion for a limited release. However, it did not receive substantial radio airplay as it was in direct competition with other releases from Merry Christmas such as "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Executives at Carey's label, Sony, had considered releasing the song commercially single to help promote it (which would make it eligible to chart on the Billboard Hot 100), but because of the short duration of the holiday season they decided to focus on sales of Merry Christmas. Promotion for the single was passed over in favour of the album elsewhere, though it was sold in Australia where it reached the top forty.

Remixes of the song by David Morales include the Celebration mix and the Celebration mix edit. Neither contain much coherent singing by Carey, who "ad libs" and shouts with the assistance of a backing choir. Morales also made a club mix, which retains the original vocal and instrumental production of the song but adds a pulsing beat and an extension of the song's body. Both remixes were pushed to U.S. dance clubs, and reached the top twenty of Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The remixes were included on the Australian release of the single, and the club mix was on the 2000 Japanese re-release single of "All I Want for Christmas Is You".

The single's video, directed by Larry Jordan, is a recording of Carey's performance at St. John's Cathedral in New York City with a choir, one of several performances meant to benefit the Fresh Air Fund for poor city children. The Celebration mix of the song also has a video. Edited by Irving Lorenzo (who was given director's credit), it is composed of clips filmed on Carey's personal camcorder during promotion for her sixth album, Daydream (1995). Carey can be seen acting goofily in an airport and hotel rooms in places like Europe and Japan.

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