"Joy To The World" Was Not Intended For Christmas

On this episode of Christmas Merry and Bright, Raymond Arroyo, an award-winning broadcaster, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed vocalist, unveils the hidden backstory of "Joy To The World" and how it is the only Christmas carol that is not a Christmas song.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Raymond Arroyo, and this is a very special presentation
Christmas Merry and Bright playback Stories. We're revealing some of
the origins the backstories of some of the most beloved
Christmas songs of all time. And I've got huge ones
for you today, including White Christmas. But first, this the
Christmas season. The entire reason we recorded my new album, Christmas,

(00:22):
Marry and Bright, was to spread joy. So I wanted
to do joy to the world. Everybody knows joy to
the world. And though we sing it at Christmas, it
is in fact the only Christmas carol that is not
a Christmas song. In seventeen nineteen, Isaac Watts wrote the
poem as a riff on Psalm ninety eight, Make a

(00:42):
Joyful Noise to the Lord all the Earth. It is
actually about the second coming of Jesus, not the first,
not as birth. When Isaac Watts was fifteen years old,
he was leaving church and he complained about the horrible
worship music. One of the deacons challenged him to create
something better, so he did. He ran home and he

(01:02):
wrote his first hymn, and he continued doing that throughout
his life. In seventeen nineteen, he wrote these lyrics. The
tune is from Handel with the Nola players on that track.
Jordy of the World was actually part of a whole
group of hymns Isaac Watts, the author, wrote based on
the Psalms of David from the Old Testament, and it

(01:24):
became a Christmas song for a very odd reason because
music for choirs was released during that season and it
became one of the most popular Christmas songs in America.
So you see, you can write for one intention and
end up with something totally different.