Behind The Music

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity. (Psalm 98:4-9 ESV)

The Story
On July 17, 1674, when Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England, his father was in jail for having been found guilty of teaching radical ideas against the Church of England. When Watts went away to school, he followed in his father’s nonconformist ways. He questioned everything, wanting to know why he or anyone should accept the way things were.

As a young adult, Watts found church music boring and uninspired. Although many of his peers agreed with him, they kept quiet. He, however, complained to his father, who challenged him to create something better. And he did–more than six hundred hymns and hundreds of poems. While studying Psalm 98, Watts wrote “Joy to the World” and set it to the tune “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” When he shared his music with the church, however, it was not well received. At the time, few English Christians felt comfortable with him having rewritten the Psalms. By 1719, he was able to publish the hymn in his new hymnbook, The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship, which also included “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “At the Cross,” and “This is the Day the Lord Has Made.”

Forty-four years later, Lowell Mason was born in Orange, New Jersey. In 1812, he moved to Macon, Georgia, to pursue a career as a banker and study Handel in his spare time. On weekends, he wrote music and arrangements. His musical creations were initially rejected, but he found a publisher in Massachusetts in 1827. He immediately left the South and moved to Boston. For the next twenty years, he was a prominent musician in New England–funding the first public school music program and writing more than six hundred hymns.

In 1836, Mason composed a new melody inspired by Handel’s Messiah. He called it “Antioch,” but he lacked words for it. Three years later, however, he linked Watts’s “Joy to the World” and his “Antioch.” Interestingly, it is unknown how “Joy to the World” became known as a Christmas carol. It is not inspired by the New Testament but the Old and it has no words that directly allude to the birth of the Messiah. In fact, “Joy to the World” could be a song for all seasons.

The 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 nature sing.

Joy to the world, 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 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 the curse is found,
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 of his love,
and wonders of his love.