One of the biggest hits of 1971 almost belonged to another rock band. Steppenwolf had a chance to record “Joy to the World” before Three Dog Night got their hands on the song, but frontman John Kay quickly decided it wasn’t for them.
The song, written by Hoyt Axton, would eventually become a six-week No. 1 hit for Three Dog Night. But before the band recorded its memorable version, Axton had already tried pitching the song elsewhere.
Axton wrote “The Pusher” for Steppenwolf’s self-titled debut album, and the song later found a second life in the 1969 film Easy Rider. So when Axton brought “Joy to the World” to Steppenwolf, there was already a connection between the songwriter and the band. But Kay didn’t hear the same potential in the new song.
The track’s opening, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog / Was a good friend of mine,” wasn’t exactly what Kay pictured when he thought of a Steppenwolf song.
“I heard it more like a children’s song, with ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog,’” Kay told Songfacts. “Three Dog Night had an enormous hit with it, but I could not see myself doing that song. It wasn’t me.”
Steppenwolf passed, but Axton wasn’t ready to give up on the song. Axton eventually pitched “Joy to the World” to Three Dog Night, though the band didn’t jump at the song right away.
According to Chuck Negron, Axton first came to the studio with the record, but the band turned him down. He came back later and tried again, only to hear another no.
When Axton came back a third time, Negron happened to be there. Axton had been drinking, and Negron recalled that some of the band members began “poking fun at him.” Negron felt bad about the situation and asked Axton to play the song.
At that point, Negron didn’t know Axton had already tried to get the group interested in it. “When he started, I liked it immediately,” Negron told Forbes. “I thought we could have some fun with it. So I told him to leave a demo.”
The band later started messing around with the song during some downtime, and Negron had an idea for how to deliver the opening line. “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?’” he recalled.
Cory Wells and Danny Hutton took a little convincing. The two singers had already rejected the song when Axton first brought it to the group. But once they played the song together, Wells and Hutton began to see why Negron thought it could work.
Three Dog Night released “Joy to the World” in 1971 as the first single from its fourth studio album, Naturally. The song went on to spend six weeks at No. 1, making it one of the biggest hits of the band’s career.
It also followed another No. 1 for Three Dog Night, “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” which topped the chart in 1970.
Related: 1955 Country Song, Written by George Jones, Was a No. 1 Hit for Another Artist
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