"Joy to the World" is a popular Christmas carol which was written by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason. It contains a message of joy and love replacing sin and sorrow. It may also be interpreted to be about life after the second coming of Christ. The hymn is significant for its widespread use throughout Christian denominations and for the musical stature of the people who created it.

The scripture-based words are by Isaac Watts. The music was adapted and arranged by Lowell Mason from an older melody which was then believed to have originated from Handel, not least because the theme of the refrain (And heaven and nature sing...) appears in the orchestra opening and accompaniment of the recitative Comfort Ye from Handel's Messiah, and the first four notes match the beginning of the choruses Lift up your heads and Glory to God from the same oratorio. However, Handel did not compose the entire tune.

One of the most well known recordings of "Joy To The World" is an instrumental version by conductor Percy Faith. First recorded in 1954 on his "Music of Christmas" LP (Columbia CL 588), it was re-recorded in stereo in 1959 as Columbia 8176.

The popular European group Boney M. covered the song in 1984 which was internationally released in 1986 on their album The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs.

John Rutter arranged the carol in the style of Handel and recorded this arrangement twice with the Cambridge Singers, for their Christmas albums Christmas Star (1983) and Christmas with the Cambridge Singers (1989). Michael Bolton sang a pop version of this song at Plácido Domingo's annual collaboration Christmas concert from Vienna in 1997.

Mariah Carey re-recorded this song for her 1994 album Merry Christmas. Carey's version, done in a dance pop style, combined the chorus (with slightly altered lyrics) of the Hoyt Axton song "Joy to the World" (made popular by Three Dog Night) with the traditional Christmas song. Traditionally, only the 1st, 2nd, and last verses are sung, this is evident in the VeggieTales (as part of The Big Medley track of A Very Veggie Christmas) and Disney Sing-Along versions.

"Joy to the World" is a song written by Hoyt Axton, and made famous by the band Three Dog Night. The song is also popularly known by its incipit, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog". The words are nonsensical. Axton wanted to convince his record producers to record a new melody he had written and the producers asked him to sing any words to the tune.

Three Dog Night's version went to number one on the pop music charts in February 1971 and was the top single of the year in Billboard Magazine for 1971 . The song was released on the band's album Naturally. It was also released on their albums Around the World With Three Dog Night (1973), Joy to the World: Their Greatest Hits (1974), The Best of 3 Dog Night (1982), and Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975 (1993). Three Dog Night never really wanted to record the song but they needed one last track for their Naturally album. The group had been on an overseas tour when that album was released and were greatly surprised to hear that the song they didn't want to record ended up being a big hit.

The edited single version (3:17) released on Dunhill records (D-4272) varies from the version widely available on their Greatest Hits collections. The mono single has a guitar solo in the instrumental bridge at approximately 1:10 that is not heard on the stereo Greatest Hits version. Plus the trailing ad libs in the single were edited from the order in which they appear in the stereo version.

In the 1990s, former Three Dog Night lead singer Chuck Negron recorded the Christmas carol "Joy to the World" and playfully included a few lyrics from the Three Dog Night/Hoyt Axton song — coming to a full stop in mid-song for the line "Jeremiah was a bullfrog." The refrain of Axton's song was also included in Mariah Carey's recording of the Christmas carol for her 1994 Merry Christmas album.