Joy to the world was written by two brilliant songwriters – although they never met – together they created one of Christmas’s most lasting songs. Each of these two musical icons ignored the established way of doing things and blazed new trails in every facet of their work.
Moreover, the men who brought the song to the world were both trying to bring religious music into a new era. Since they lived a half a world away from each other and were separated by almost a century of time, little did either of these revolutionaries realize that through their collaboration they would create a timeless holiday classic for every age and every audience. As a matter of fact, Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason probably didn’t even know they had given the world a Christmas anthem at all.
Isaac Watts was born on July 17, 1674, in Southampton, England. His father, also named Isaac, was a revolutionary protestant church figure in Britain. Strong-willed and stubborn, the elder Watts, a cobbler and tailor by trade, resided in prison when his son was born. He was a criminal nonconformist, having been found guilty of teaching radical ideas that were not approved by the Church of England or established scholars of the time. At a very early age it was obvious that the senior Watts had passed his free-thinking ways onto his son.
Isaac Watts grew up worshiping at Southampton’s Above Bar Congregational Church. Most British children who displayed Isaac’s Intellectual potential would have been assigned to Oford or Cambridge; yet because he was not a member of the Church of England, Isaac was sent to the Independent Academy at Stoke, Newington. There-no doubt spurred on by his father’s example – he continued to display his rebellious nature.
Not content to allow things to remain status quo, Watts questioned everything. He demanded to know why he or anyone else should be satisfied with the way things were when they could be so much better. Although he did well in his studies, Isaac left the Academy at the age of twenty after learning Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and returned home to live with his father.
Like most young people, Watts found church music of the period to be uninspired and monotonous. He saw no joy or emotion in the standards sung by choirs and congregations. Yet while most of the new generation kept quiet, Isaac complained bitterly to his father about the archaic language of the psalms sung in church. The elder Watts, never one to stand on tradition, challenged his son to come up with something better. This challenge initiated a creative burst that would not end until Isaac had composed more than six hundred hymns and hundreds of other poems.
“Behold the Glories of the Lamb” was the first Isaac Watts hymn. It was followed by scores of others. For a while, most of his work was met with contempt; no one wanted new translations of the Scriptures. Some even viewed young Watts as a heretic or tool of the devil. Yet he refused to give up. He constantly challenged those around him with new songs and new ideas on faith.
After spending several years making his living as a personal tutor, Watts became the assistant to Dr. Isaac Chauncey at Mark Lane Independent Chapel, London. Within three years the now twenty-six-year-old Isaac became the minister. Thanks in part to his work ethic, as well as his new ideas, the church grew rapidly. With his new position and the respect that accompanied it, Isaac was finally able to publish his songs.
Through his hymns and theological writings, Watts became one of the best known clerics in England. Elizabeth Singer-a young woman deeply impressed by the minister’s inspired written work-wrote to Isaac and quickly established herself as his biggest fan. She proposed marriage via the mail. When he accepted, Singer anxiously raced to Isaac’s side.
Rather than cementing a life-long love, this meeting ultimately focused the writer on his work, not on Elizabeth. Singer would later say, “He was only five feet tall, with a shallow face and a hooked nose, prominent cheek bones, small eyes and a deathlike color.” Unable to look at the man and see the brilliance that lay just underneath, the woman immediately went back home. Heartbroken, Watts poured himself into his writing, never again seeking the companionship of a woman.
It was while studying Psalm 98 that Isaac was inspired to write his most famous song. In verse four Watts studied the phrase, “Make a joyful noise unto the lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” Focusing on this verse and the five that followed it, Watts penned a four-stanza poem called “Joy to the World.” Set in a common meter, the poem was usually sung to the tune “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Yet because Isaac had dared to rewrite the psalms, few British Christians of the time embraced the song.
Watts did not give up in his efforts to make church music more meaningful to the common man. He continued, in the face of growing criticism, to write and publish new songs. The Psalms of David imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship was released in 1719. This volume, filled with now well-known classics such as “We’re Marching to Zion,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “At the Cross,” and “This is the Day the Lord has Made,” would not only be slowly accepted by British Christians buyt would inspire others like Charles Wesley and John Newton to compose other new Christians songs based on personal experiences.
There can be little doubt that Watt’s stubborn will and continued efforts to bring Christian music to the common man kept “Joy to the World!” in the public eye long after the writer’s death in 1748. It also began a revolution in modern Christian musical thinking.
Forty-four years later, Lowell Mason was born in Orange, New Jersey. As a teen, he directed his church choir and taught at singing schools. Even though many thought of him as musically gifted, Mason didn’t see a way to make a living at it. In 1812 the young man moved to Savannah, Georgia, and began a career as a banker. But music hadn’t left his soul. In his spare time he also learned harmony, wrote original melodies, and became a student of the composer Handel.
With the late German composer as his influence, the banker sent off a book of self-penned music and arrangements to a Boston publisher. When the material was matter-of-factly rejected because the American public wanted new folk music, not classical standards, Mason decided to use his talents only on weekends as a Sunday school teacher and organist at the local Presbyterian church. Imagine his shock when, in 1827, he discovered that not only had his music found a publisher, but that the Handel and Haydn Society of Massachusetts had orders for fifty thousand copies of his songbook! Immediately leaving the South, Lowell Mason moved to Boston.
For the next twenty years Mason was a mover and shaker in New England music circles. Like Isaac Watts, Lowell saw himself as a revolutionary; he was constantly battling the establishment with his own fresh ideas. Schools at the time ignored music, so using his own money, he initiated the first public school music program in Boston. He also became the city’s most important music publisher and would eventually write more than six hundred hymns, including “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” and “Nearer My God to Thee.”
In 1836, Mason, whose love for the classical composers of Germany had not waned, composed a new melody inspired by two songs from Handel’s Messiah: “Lift Up Your Head” and “Comfort Ye.” Yet when Mason finished his work, he had something brand new, an exuberant ode he called “Antioch” after the Syrian city that was the point of departure for Paul’s first two missionary journeys. “Antioch” seemed to beg for words, but it would take the writer a while to find the message to go with his melody. Three years later, in a song book entitled Modern Psalmist, Mason finally linked one of Watt’s psalms-inspired lyrics to his tune. This time the people were ready for “Joy to the World!”
In 1911, Elise Stevenson, who had scored huge chart success during the early days of records with “Shine On, Harvest Moon” and “Are You Sincere?” joined Trinity Choir for a Christmas release of “Joy to the World!” The Victor Records single climbed to number five on the charts and marked the first time that either Watts’s or Mason’s music had appeared on popular, contemporary music playlists (though “Joy to the World!” would later inspire a rock music hit for a group called “Three Dog Night”).
It remains a mystery how this hymn became known as a Christmas Carol. Inspired by Old Testament Scripture-with no words alluding to the birth of Jesus other than the phrase, “the Lord is come” – “Joy to the World!” would seem to be a song for all seasons, something to be sung in July as much as December. Nevertheless, for some reason Americans embraced “Joy to the World!” as a holiday standard. Perhaps, because of its jubilant spirit, it just “felt” like a Christmas song!
“Joy to the World!” is one of today’s most loved Christmas carols. Yet because it does not use as its inspiration anything from the first four gospels of the New Testament, it also stands as a unique non-Christmas Christmas standard. Perhaps that is fitting, since both Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason strove to push the envelope in order to get people to see Scripture and music in a whole new way. Watts and Mason knew, and we should remember, that Christians should exude joy each and every day because the “Lord is come.”
Joy to the World Songs and Versions
Joy to the World 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 nature sing
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
Joy to the Earth, the Savior reigns
Let all their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy
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
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 nature sing
(And Heaven and nature sing)
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
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 nature sing
(And Heaven and nature sing)
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
