Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Was a good friend of mine. I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him a-drink his wine. And he always had some mighty fine wine.
This Joy to the World has nothing to do with the holiday season just past. This is another song that was not supposed to be a hit. Instead, with more than 5 million copies sold, it is among the best-selling songs of all time.
Let’s start at the very beginning.
I hear that’s a very good place to start. Hoyt Axton was a singer/songwriter, guitarist, and an actor. There are some who feel that the original lyric began with Jeremiah was a prophet, but Axton, himself, denied that idea.
In his version of the story, (and I see no reason to doubt it) he had the chorus already written.
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the fishes in the deep, blue sea,
Joy to you and me.
He had the music written for the verse, just not the words. But he was recording the demo and needed something to fit the notes. So, he took a swig from the wine he was holding and started singing. These were supposed to be place-holder lyrics. He planned on writing others. He just never got the chance to do so.
Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
He always had some mighty fine wine
(Chorus)
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,
Joy to you and me.
If I were the king of the world,
Tell you what I’d do;
I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the wars.
And make sweet love to you.
Make sweet love to you.
You know I love the ladies,
Love to have my fun.
I’m a high night flier and a rainbow rider,
And a straight shootin’ sun of a gun.
I said a straight shootin’ sun of a gun.
Enter Three Dog Night.
The band was started in 1967 as Redwood, becoming Three Dog Night in 1968. (The story behind the name goes to an indigenous Australian concept of taking their dingoes to bed on cold nights. On a really cold night you would take two dogs. If it was freezing – three dogs. Hence – Three Dog Night.) The band was the dreamchild of Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron, all lead singers. It was an interesting conceit: three lead singers, taking turns on singing backup for each other. And it worked. 12 Gold albums and 21 consecutive Top 40 hits. They were huge.
And they thought that Joy to the World was one of the silliest, stupidest songs they had ever heard. But they liked another song of Axton’s that they were putting on this album (Never been to Spain) and they needed something to fill the last spot on the album. So, reluctantly, they recorded Joy to the World.
The album, Naturally, came out in 1970. The first single to chart off it was One Man Band. Then a DJ in Seattle was working on a tape of odd cuts from current albums, songs that would not normally get airplay. He also needed just one more song to fill a tape. Joy to the World was definitely odd and was the right length to finish the tape. Later, when he played the tape, the phone started ringing.
Joy to the World spent six weeks at the #1 spot on the Top 40.
All Good Things
Three Dog Night were at the top of their game in 1973 when things started slowing disintegrating. Band members began leaving and being replaced. Some left on their own, some were fired. Danny Hutton had serious health issues due to drug use. At one point, a nurse was hired to tour with them, to give Hutton vitamin B12 shots so that he could finish the current tour. He was then fired. Later that year, Chuck Negron was arrested on narcotics charges. By 1976, the band was done.
However, like so many other groups, by 1981, the band was back recording and touring. But, by 1985, Negron’s drug habit was unbearable for the rest of the band, and he was fired. (He now tours as Chuck Negron – formerly of Three Dog Night, and has finally beaten his heroin habit.) The rest of the band’s history is a recital of people leaving for this and that reason.
Sadly, Cory Wells, the only member of the band to not have a drug habit, died in 2015 of blood cancer. However, this has not stopped Three Dog Night. Danny Hutton, with one other original band member, still tours as Three Dog Night.
And now we get personal
In the summer of 1970, my father ran a summer school. Dad taught at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, WV, and this was a part of the Education Department’s summer program that year. Dad and Mom were both teachers, as was my older brother, Hal, and his soon-to-be-wife. (They were both Education majors.) I got to attend. Every session ended with music. And our unofficial theme song was Joy to the World. Dad, Hal and I would pull out our guitars, and we would lead the whole gang in singing. It was so much fun. And is a part of why this song has special meaning to me.
Fast forward to 2001. I was the music director for St. Mark’s Episcopal church in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We were working on Joy to the World, with the lyric change of Jeremiah being a prophet, along with a few others, when I got word that Dad was in the hospital, and I needed to get to Scottsdale. Fast. His transplanted kidney was failing. Dad did not make it. And I was not there when my choir sang Joy to the World. But, my two older children, both teen-agers at this point, were singing in the choir. That Sunday, the song was dedicated to the memory of my Dad.
Not long after that, we got to see Three Dog Night on tour at the state fair. It was a great show. Of course, they saved Joy to the World, their biggest hit, for the encore. When they announced the “song about that frog,” I cried, and sang along.
Do you have a story about Joy to the World? Let me know in the comments below. I will be posting some of my favorite versions of this and other Three Dog Night songs on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
Until next time!
This Joy to the World has nothing to do with the holiday season just past. This is another song that was not supposed to be a hit. Instead, with more than 5 million copies sold, it is among the best-selling songs of all time.
Let’s start at the very beginning.
I hear that’s a very good place to start. Hoyt Axton was a singer/songwriter, guitarist, and an actor. There are some who feel that the original lyric began with Jeremiah was a prophet, but Axton, himself, denied that idea.
In his version of the story, (and I see no reason to doubt it) he had the chorus already written.
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the fishes in the deep, blue sea,
Joy to you and me.
He had the music written for the verse, just not the words. But he was recording the demo and needed something to fit the notes. So, he took a swig from the wine he was holding and started singing. These were supposed to be place-holder lyrics. He planned on writing others. He just never got the chance to do so.
Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
He always had some mighty fine wine
(Chorus)
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,
Joy to you and me.
If I were the king of the world,
Tell you what I’d do;
I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the wars.
And make sweet love to you.
Make sweet love to you.
You know I love the ladies,
Love to have my fun.
I’m a high night flier and a rainbow rider,
And a straight shootin’ sun of a gun.
I said a straight shootin’ sun of a gun.
Enter Three Dog Night.
The band was started in 1967 as Redwood, becoming Three Dog Night in 1968. (The story behind the name goes to an indigenous Australian concept of taking their dingoes to bed on cold nights. On a really cold night you would take two dogs. If it was freezing – three dogs. Hence – Three Dog Night.) The band was the dreamchild of Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron, all lead singers. It was an interesting conceit: three lead singers, taking turns on singing backup for each other. And it worked. 12 Gold albums and 21 consecutive Top 40 hits. They were huge.
And they thought that Joy to the World was one of the silliest, stupidest songs they had ever heard. But they liked another song of Axton’s that they were putting on this album (Never been to Spain) and they needed something to fill the last spot on the album. So, reluctantly, they recorded Joy to the World.
The album, Naturally, came out in 1970. The first single to chart off it was One Man Band. Then a DJ in Seattle was working on a tape of odd cuts from current albums, songs that would not normally get airplay. He also needed just one more song to fill a tape. Joy to the World was definitely odd and was the right length to finish the tape. Later, when he played the tape, the phone started ringing.
Joy to the World spent six weeks at the #1 spot on the Top 40.
All Good Things
Three Dog Night were at the top of their game in 1973 when things started slowing disintegrating. Band members began leaving and being replaced. Some left on their own, some were fired. Danny Hutton had serious health issues due to drug use. At one point, a nurse was hired to tour with them, to give Hutton vitamin B12 shots so that he could finish the current tour. He was then fired. Later that year, Chuck Negron was arrested on narcotics charges. By 1976, the band was done.
However, like so many other groups, by 1981, the band was back recording and touring. But, by 1985, Negron’s drug habit was unbearable for the rest of the band, and he was fired. (He now tours as Chuck Negron – formerly of Three Dog Night, and has finally beaten his heroin habit.) The rest of the band’s history is a recital of people leaving for this and that reason.
Sadly, Cory Wells, the only member of the band to not have a drug habit, died in 2015 of blood cancer. However, this has not stopped Three Dog Night. Danny Hutton, with one other original band member, still tours as Three Dog Night.
And now we get personal
In the summer of 1970, my father ran a summer school. Dad taught at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, WV, and this was a part of the Education Department’s summer program that year. Dad and Mom were both teachers, as was my older brother, Hal, and his soon-to-be-wife. (They were both Education majors.) I got to attend. Every session ended with music. And our unofficial theme song was Joy to the World. Dad, Hal and I would pull out our guitars, and we would lead the whole gang in singing. It was so much fun. And is a part of why this song has special meaning to me.
Fast forward to 2001. I was the music director for St. Mark’s Episcopal church in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We were working on Joy to the World, with the lyric change of Jeremiah being a prophet, along with a few others, when I got word that Dad was in the hospital, and I needed to get to Scottsdale. Fast. His transplanted kidney was failing. Dad did not make it. And I was not there when my choir sang Joy to the World. But, my two older children, both teen-agers at this point, were singing in the choir. That Sunday, the song was dedicated to the memory of my Dad.
Not long after that, we got to see Three Dog Night on tour at the state fair. It was a great show. Of course, they saved Joy to the World, their biggest hit, for the encore. When they announced the “song about that frog,” I cried, and sang along.
Do you have a story about Joy to the World? Let me know in the comments below. I will be posting some of my favorite versions of this and other Three Dog Night songs on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
Until next time!
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