Forty years ago this week, The Montreal Canadians and the Chicago Blackhawks were gripped in a tight Stanley Cup final. Direct Distance Dialing (or DDD) was being offered to Winnipeg phone customers for long distance calls outside North America, and the new Manitoba Drivers licenses would now be categorized for the first time in 7 different “classes”.
There was also this catchy song on the radio about a bullfrog named “Jeremiah” that was into its second week at number one on the charts…
“Joy To The World” started out as a filler tune written for an animated television show called “The Happy Song”. Written by Hoyt Axton, a singer/songwriter living in San Francisco in the late 60′s, Axton was becoming known for being able to write songs filled with lyrical honesty, matching that with an equal ability to create musical stories with the words he wrote.
Axton’s creativity was nurtured by his mother. Mae Axton would have her own success, co-writing “Heartbreak Hotel” and claiming to have been the person responsible for introducing Elvis Presley to Colonel Tom Parker.
The TV show that Hoyt was writing for never got to production. The baritone country folksinger had been opening for Three Dog Night on tour in 1969, and one night backstage, he played the song for Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron, who was enchanted by the happy yet simple lyrics. Axton admitted the “Jeremiah was a bull frog” lyrics were just filler for the song, never intending to actually use them.
The rest of Three Dog Night were hesitant to record something that bordered on novelty, but Negron convinced the band that the song would be a good balance to the material being considered for their next album.
“Joy to The World” appeared as a filler song itself on Three Dog Night’s album “Naturally”. It was the last song added to the album at the last-minute. No one thought of it as a potential single.
In the spring of 1971, a few months after the album had been released, a Seattle radio station began playing Joy To The World after a disc jockey randomly played the song from the album on his show. Listeners began calling the station, wanting to hear that “Jeremiah was a bullfrog song!”
The bullfrog named Jeremiah began leapfrogging up the charts. Dunhill Records raced to release it as a single. Little did they know how massive the song would become, staying at number one for six straight weeks and eventually becoming Song Of The Year and the biggest selling record of 1971.
Hoyt Axton would become known for writing songs for dozens of other artists including Elvis, The Kingston Trio, Steppenwolf, John Denver and Ringo Starr.
“He always had some mighty fine wine”
A “bullfrog” by the way, is a nickname in New Orleans for a drunk.
With team mascots, sports bars and festivals named after the happy little hopper, Jeremiah the bullfrog has become part of Americana.
