THE BIRTHDAY OF A KING

Music and Text: William H. Neidlinger
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

New York organist and composer William Neidlinger wrote operas, cantatas, art songs, and sacred music. But it wasn’t the grand works in the classical genres that made his reputation. Neidlinger’s volume of children’s songs titled Small Songs for Small Singers (1896) became a standard resource for early music educators. And in his younger days, while still a student, he wrote his best known song, “The Birthday of a King.”

Neidlinger’s lyrics contrast the unassuming setting of the village of Bethlehem with the glory of Christ’s birth, while the melodic leaps upward on the “Alleluia” refrain express the joy of the angels’ song that Nativity night. The song first became widely popular when Judy Garland recorded it in 1941.

In the little village of Bethlehem,
There lay a child one day,
And the sky was bright with a holy light,
O’er the place where Jesus lay:

Alleluia! O how the angels sang,
Alleluia! How it rang:
And the sky was bright with a holy light,
’Twas the birthday of a King.

’Twas a humble birthplace, but oh!
How much God gave to us that day,
From the manger bed, what a path has led
What a perfect holy way:

Alleluia! O how the angels sang,
Alleluia! How it rang:
And the sky was bright with a holy light,
’Twas the birthday of a King.