ECHOaustin

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Joy to the World.”  Here is a brief behind the scenes look at that wonderful song. 

“Joy to the World” is a paraphrase of Ps. 98 by Isaac Watts written in 1719.  Watts, as a young man in the church complained to his father about the archaic, uninspired songs sung in church.   So his father challenged him to go and make something better.  Watts went on to write more than 600 hymns, including, “When I Survey the Wonderous Cross, At the Cross, This is the Day that the Lord has Made.” At age 26 Watts became a pastor.   The hymn flowed from Isaacs pen after his study of Ps. 98.  However the hymn was not well received by his contemporaries and so it lay dormant for nearly 80 years.  Until a banker with a heart for music discovered the words of “Joy to the World.”  Lowell Mason had written hymns & music his whole life and had a music piece that he created he called Antioch that begged for words.  Mason came across the lyrics to “Joy to the World” that had been penned and forgotten for over 80 years.  In 1911 the song was recorded by Elise Stevenson and climbed all the way to #5 on the contemporary music playlists.