Joy to the World by Three Dog Night
Artist: Three Dog Night Weeks at #1: 6 weeks Chart dates: April 17, 1971 – May 22, 1971
About
Three Dog Night’s 1971 single “Joy to the World” reached #1 on the Billboard chart and became one of their signature songs. It originally appeared on their fourth studio album Naturally in 1970. The song was written by country singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton, who also went on to write Three Dog Night’s hit “Never Been to Spain”. When Axton played the song to the group, the band rejected it, but Chuck Negron felt that the band needed to record a “silly song”, as he explained in the liner notes for Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975: When I picked “Joy” it had been turned down by everybody in the band. I thought we were so serious, that this band needed a silly song to again become a unit. If you notice, everyone in the band is singing, it’s not all this perfect harmony. There’s laughing and goofing around. And we became a band again through that song…I think that’s why the record was a hit…It wasn’t even close to our best record, but it might have been one of our most honest.
