I've Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy
"Joy In My Heart," sometimes titled "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy" is a popular Christian song often sung around the campfire and during scouting events. It is often included in Gospel music and a cappella concerts, songbooks, and Christian children's songbooks.[1] The song was written by George William Cooke. Cooke was born in Yorkshire, England in 1884 and died in Jamestown, New York in 1951. He was the author of "Joy in My Heart" which was copyrighted in 1925 (but not renewed). At that time he was living in Wilmington, Delaware. He was a minister and associated with a group called Gospel Crusaders which was associated with the Methodist Church. He ran the Delmarva Camp, a Methodist camp that held gospel meetings and revivals. He was later minister of Methodist churches in Buffalo and Rochester New York. As a young man, he twice circled the globe in evangelistic tours with Commissioner Samuel L. Brengle of the Salvation Army.
In popular culture
The song is the origin of the title of William Stafford's prose memoir of his WWII pacifist service, Down In My Heart.[2]
References
- For example, it is number 140 in Bobb, Barry All God's People Sing. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992, 316 pp.
- Kim Stafford, Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford, Publisher Trinity University Press, 2014 ISBN 9781595341860
External links
- I've Got the Joy lyrics (with guitar chords)
- The song, as sung by "Noelle & John" is available for free download in MP3 format