Originally, this was a West Indian song written by Jester Hairston, a Julliard-trained songwriter who would later popularize the spiritual "Amen" during the civil rights movement in the United States. The song tells the story of the birth of Jesus.
When this reached #1, Harry Belafonte became the first black male to have a #1 in the UK. It was the first song to sell 1 million copies in the UK, and the first ever British #1 record to have a playing time of more than four minutes (4:12).
This stayed at #1 in the UK for seven weeks before becoming the only song to drop from #1 straight out of Top 10 the following week (after Christmas, when it tumbled from #1 to #12). The song returned to the charts the next two years at Christmas, going to #10 in 1958 and #30 in 1959.
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