How Three Dog Night’s ‘Joy to the World’ Made Chart History

Three Dog Night was one of those bands that hit the ground running.

Formed in 1967 in Los Angeles, their debut, self-titled album arrived the following year. It consisted entirely of covers and was an immediate success, reaching No. 11 on the Billboard 200. Their cover of Harry Nilsson‘s «One,» was a Top 5 hit and even the toughest of critics found Three Dog Night to be an outstanding release.

«None of the singers wrote,» the notoriously unforgiving Robert Christgau wrote in The New York Times back then, «the supporting musicians were anonymous and, with one exception, production and arrangement ranged from tasteful to superb. Taken all together, it was a brilliant revamping of the produced groups of rock’s early days, applied to serious songs instead of honest schlock.»

So began Three Dog Night’s long career in covering the work of other songwriters — a skill in its own right, even if it sounds easy.

And that’s where a man named Hoyt Axton, a singer-songwriter and occasional actor, came into the picture. At that point, Axton wasn’t hugely well known, though his discography would eventually include songs like «The Pusher,» recorded by Steppenwolf for the movie Easy Rider, «No No Song,» a hit for Ringo Starr in 1975, «Never Been to Spain,» recorded by Elvis Presley, Cher, Ike and Tina Turner and others, plus many more hits.

He also had a tune called «Joy to the World,» but at that point, Three Dog Night was pretty popular in terms of songwriters submitting tracks for covering consideration.

«They had a system back in the late ’60s — they were so hot, they were getting, like, 5,000 songs a year,» Axton later recalled. «So they had three guys, working eight hour days with a tape recorder and a record player, and what they’d do is they’d listen to the first four bars of every song and if it grabbed them they’d put it in another stack for the singers and the producer to listen to. If it didn’t grab them, it would go in the trash can.»

‘Joy to the World’ Was Nearly Not Recorded

And «Joy to the World» almost did go in the trash can. According to founding Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron, the band wasn’t super keen on the track, despite Axton pitching it to them multiple times. The first two times, Negron wasn’t present at the studio.

«Hoyt came in yet another time, and this time I was there,» Negron explained to Forbes in 2022. «He had had a couple of drinks, and the band started poking fun at him. I felt bad that they were treating him like that. I didn’t know he been there multiple times, though, so I asked him to play it. When he started, I liked it immediately. I thought we could have some fun with it.

«So I told him to leave a demo. We had some free time later, so we started jamming ‘Joy’ for fun. We didn’t have to be so cool all of the time, right? That opening line had to be screamed. Did that guy just say, ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog?’ I got up the scale to D, which is pretty high, and just screamed it out. When the band heard that, they went, ‘Holy crap, that’s great.’ Then Cory [Wells] and Danny [Hutton] [Three Dog Night’s two other vocalists] showed up. Initially they weren’t very happy because, of course, they had turned the song down. But finally, I got them to sing along.»

Three Dog Night got the whole of America to sing along, too. When «Joy to the World» was released as a single in February 1971, it didn’t take very long for it to climb the charts. On April 17, it hit No. 1.

Listen to Three Dog Night’s ‘Joy to the World’

Axton was glad things had worked out.

«I started writing songs when I was 15,» he said to The Oklahoman in 1982. «All I ever wanted to be was a songwriter. … When somebody likes your stuff enough to want to record it when they have access to, God knows, millions of songs it’s great.»

‘Joy to the World’ Makes Chart History

There was another reason for the good feelings: when «Joy to the World» hit No. 1, it meant that Axton and his mother, Mae Axton, became the first ever (and only, to date) the only parent/duo to land a No. 1 hit independently of each other on the singles chart.

Mae Axton was one of the co-writers of «Heartbreak Hotel,» a No. 1 hit for Elvis Presley in 1956 that topped the Billboard Top 100 for seven weeks. «I think you’re one of the fastest rising young stars,» Mae Axton said in a 1955 interview she conducted with Presley.

In 2022, Negron admitted that «Joy to the World» was not «one of my favorites,» personally.

«It’s not close to being something representative of the band. It does show how eclectic we could be, though. Of course, we all love it because it changed our lives,» he said. «It was a carefree, fun song, and those lines, ‘Joy to the world, all the boys and girls’ — I mean, joy to everybody, even the fishes [Laughs]. That sentiment hit all the demographics, the core of America.»

READ MORE: Top 10 Chuck Negron Three Dog Night Songs

And Axton was more than happy with being the behind-the-scenes originator.

«I’m a songwriter,» he said in a 1990 interview. «And if you can take a song from your living room and someone gets a hit with it, that’s the answer to life for a songwriter.»