Last week I wrote the article “Is Joy to the World Only A Christmas Song? Is it wrong for Advent?” and promised that Sojourn worship leader Jamie Barnes would share more thoughts on the song with you. Jamie wrote a brand new melody for Isaac Watts’ classic, and recorded it on our Advent Songs album. In this post, he talks about his reason for composing a new melody, shares his original demo for you to hear, and talks about changes made to the original arrangement during the recording of Advent Songs :
Below, you can hear the rough draft of “Joy to the World” I sent to Pastor Mike Cosper after he challenged me to rewrite the melody. Mike and I both thought the original text of this song was so rich and powerful – but the traditional arrangement seemed to overshadow the meaning. One usually hears these words to that gaudy, overblown tune – probably one of my least favorite holiday songs. So, Mike took a challenge to me to write something more subtle to present these words in.
This is what I came up with after working with it for a few days. The main difference of course between this demo and the final cut that appears on the album is the beautifully written bridge section that Neil Robins and I wrote on the spot before putting the song to tape. He sat at his piano and I parked it beside him with my guitar. He was hearing a melody in his head ( that is played by the piano and glockenspiel in the recording ), so we put chords underneath it.
It took about 15 minutes to come up with. It was a really nice moment. I don’t usually write music with other people – but ultimately saw the great benefit of sitting down with another musician and fleshing things out.
And of course, Neil makes it sound like a chamber orchestra on the record. Out of all the songs I’ve recorded, this is actually one of my favorites. I think people caught on to the newly arranged melody pretty quickly. I still can’t listen to the traditional version. Its way too abrasive. Let the text speak!
Jamie Barnes’ “Joy to the World” demo
See Jamie and Neil goofing off with their track of “Joy to the World” in the studio:
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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.
Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
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!
Brilliant! I have felt that way about the traditional melody for years–all the ornament and repetition makes it almost impossible to concentrate enough even to hear what the song is saying. Jamie’s tune is great, and I love the arrangement on the CD.
I’m curious whether the 3rd verse was omitted for some reason other than sheer length.
Wes,
Thanks for the encouraging words.
Mainly, the 3rd verse was cut for length. I personally like it but it is a little more poetically cryptic than rest of the song and and we thought that the 1st, 2nd and 4th verses worked better for where we wanted to go with the overall feel. Its hard to cut Isaac Watts lyrics though….feels kind of icky like we are ripping out pages of the Bible or something.
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Just a little addendum here. We’ve now added the 3rd verse “as far as the curse is found” back into when we sing this together in services. Too good of a verse to leave out. We regret leaving it out of the recording now. Funny how perspective changes over years.
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