Three Dog Night – Joy To The World While some people think this song is about a bullfrog, including myself as a kid, others, think that it has a religious tone with the bullfrog being the prophet Jeremiah from the bible. Furthermore, while both sides make a pretty good case on each theory.

Joy to the World was the top song on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1971.

"Joy to the World" is a song written by Hoyt Axton and made famous by the band Three Dog Night. The song is also popularly known by its opening lyric, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog".

That odd, simple and urgent declarative sentence from Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World" is one of the most famous classic-rock song openings of all time. But the man who sang it both then and now, Chuck Negron, says that what became the group's most recognizable hit almost never even made it to vinyl.