This song is by Louise Ruspini. It is a gathering tune of Unitarian origin and I have a crumpled hand written copy. I gather it is in the Unitarian hymnal “Singing the Living Tradition” that you can buy from Amazon.
It reminds me of the choruses we sang at Sunday school in the 60s.
These are the lyrics I found on the net.
1 Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in.
Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.2 Open your ears to the song. Open your ears to the song.
Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.3 Open your hearts ev’ryone. Open your hearts ev’ryone.
Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.4 Don’t be afraid of some change. Don’t be afraid of some
change. Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.5 Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in.
Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.
Interestingly these are not the lyrics we sang in a Catholic church. We sang:
1 Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in.
2 Lift up your hearts to the Lord… 3 Open your hearts to all men… (or everyone) 4 Sing alleluia…
Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in.
© Louise Ruspini 1992.
Please send me some songs I need.
G’Day Joseph.
You may have to explain what you mean.
Geoff
If the song was copyrighted in 1992, I am puzzled that it was published in a Ugandan Catholic song book “We sing and pray to God” before 1989. It was included in a song book compiled in Sudan in 1989, and first printed in large numbers in 1990.
Rhondda Hall, Uganda
I would love to see these. Can you provide scans or links? I’m trying to research the origins of this song and it has proved very difficult. drewc [at] fusmadison [dot] org. Thank you!
I got my hand on a copy of the American Catholic Hymn book – which didn’t really help at all, except for suggesting that the Louise Ruspini association is from the 1970s, not the 1990s.
A summary of what I’ve found out is here: https://www.godsongs.net/2021/11/enter-rejoice-and-come-in-today-will-be-a-joyful-day.html – but I’m sure there is more to the story.
Indeed: the words that Geoff sang in a Catholic church are the same as the ones I sang in primary school in New Zealand in the early 1970s. If Louise Ruspini wrote it, she wrote it before then. I don’t have any evidence of it being published (although I’m pretty sure it was in a school hymnal compiled by the local Mercy convent sisters).
However she may have written some new words, and possibly they were copyright 1992.
This song definitely appeared in several school and parish hymn books around Wellington in the early 1970s although I don’t think any of them were commercially published. It was in the Mercy Sister’s Sing, Sing, Sing song book (no 69) but no copyright info for it was included. I think it was also in Tenei Matau used at St Mary of the Angels. It was in the Holy Cross Miramar parish song book and several other small parish and school song books from around that time.