#267: Joy to the World

This is a classic for a reason. It's one of Isaac Watts' best-known hymns. It features some bass echoes on "and heaven and nature sing" (probably on the other verses too, but the echo is only printed for one verse!). It has stuff about "plains" and "prove" which worked well for a math parody about "planes" and proving things. My choir sang an arrangement by John Rutter (famous for "What Sweeter Music" and other choral anthems) at a big multi-choir event in winter 2004, which was a couple months after the Red Sox won the World Series, so I was thinking of them during "far as the curse is found!"

There is only one problem. This is not an Advent song.

This is very clearly a Christmas carol. "The Lord is come," "the Savior reigns," "he rules the world." Present tense! He does it right now! Because he has come, we're not still anticipating him! This was categorized as a Christmas hymn in previous hymnals, and it's the last song in this edition's Advent section (we're really getting down to the last few now!), which made me literally wonder if it was a typo. It's not. The editors decided to put this with the Advent hymns.

I mean, it's a great song, but...????