Hymn Story: I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart

I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart is a popular song with children as well as sung around a camp fire. The tune is upbeat, catchy and hard to forget.

George William Cooke wrote the song, which was copyrighted as “Joy in My Heart” in 1925.

As a young man, he twice circled the globe in evangelistic tours with Commissioner Samuel L. Brengle of the Salvation Army.  He was a minister and associated with the Gospel Crusaders when he wrote the song. He also ran the Delmarva Camp and later served as a minister to serveral churches in Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

Cooke was born in Yorkshire, England in 1884 and died in Jamestown, New York in 1951.