"When A Child Is Born" is a popular Christmas song. The original melody was "Soleado", a tune from 1974 by :it:Ciro Dammicco|Ciro Dammicco, composer for Italy's Daniel Sentacruz Ensemble, and Dario Baldan Bembo. The tune was based on Damicco's earlier tune "Le rose blu" published in 1972. The English language lyrics were written a few years later by Fred Jay. They do not make specific mention of Christmas. Fred Jay's lyrics have been sung by many artists, most successfully by Johnny Mathis in 1976, whose version was the Christmas number one in the UK.
Performances
"Soleado" is used in the 1975 Argentinean film Nazareno Cruz y el lobo, and it is credited as "Theme From the Motion Picture 'The Love of the Wolf'" on Mathis's album Johnny Mathis Sings the Movie Greats. Artists who have performed the song include:
ACM Gospel Choir in their 2008 Mail on Sunday giveaway CD Christmas with the Choir
Il Divo, in their 2005 album The Christmas Collection.
English covers
Michael Holm . The original 1974-75 US chart single.
Billy T James
Tarja Turunen
Lee Towers
Mireille Mathieu
Andrea Bocelli
Plácido Domingo
Sissel Kyrkjebø
Demis Roussos
Il Divo
Boney M
Australian singer Alfio recorded a version of this song in 2006 for his debut album Tranquillita: The Christmas Edition
Chinese singer Albert Au also recorded the song in English
Filipino singer José Mari Chan covered the song on his holiday album, Christmas in Our Hearts.
Frank Patterson
Connie Talbot, a contestant from Britain's Got Talent included it in two albums: Connie Talbot's Christmas Album in 2008 and Connie Talbot's Holiday Magic in 2009.
Joe McElderry for his third studio album, Classic Christmas.
Jai Waetford on his debut album after he comes on the third place at The X Factor Australia in 2013
Cilla Black from the 1980 album Especially For You
The best known version of the song is probably the Jack Gold produced version for Johnny Mathis. Entitled "When A Child Is Born " with B-side as "Every Time You Touch Me ", it became Johnny Mathis' sole number one single in the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks at the top of the chart in December 1976, including the coveted Christmas number one slot, and selling 885,000 copies. In the US, it appeared in the Record World survey in both the Christmas seasons of 1976 and 1977, reaching a maximum position of No. 123, and racking up 10 chart weeks. In addition, Mathis re-recorded the song as a duet with Gladys Knight and the Pips. This version reached Record World No. 137 during the Christmas season of 1980, and the UK Singles Chart at No. 79.
Language versions
In 1974, the melody was sung with Spanish lyrics by Manolo Otero and entitled "Todo el tiempo del mundo".
The same melody was used with German lyrics by Michael Holm in "Tränen lügen nicht" in 1974. In German, the song is totally unrelated to Christmas. The singer asks a guy to reconsider breaking up with his girl because her tears don't lie.
*The Michael Holm version of "Tears Don't Lie", with the Fred Jay lyrics performed in English, was a minor hit in the US, reaching #53 on Billboard's Hot 100, #7 on Billboard's Easy Listening Top 50. The tune was used for Mark 'Oh's 1995 dance hit, also called "Tears Don't Lie".
In 1975 the melody was used with French language lyrics, written by Henri Dijan and sung by Mireille Mathieu "On ne vit pas sans se dire adieu". The lyrics completely changed to a story about a 16-year-old girl whose love was denied by the boys father, whose son was expected to marry a better woman after his education and military service.
It was sung with Hungarian lyrics by Zsuzsa Cserháti "Édes kisfiam". In 1975 Iván Bradányi wrote the lyrics of this song for Cserháti after her son was born.
Turkish star sang this beautiful song with Turkish language lyrics. It was titled "Gozyaslari yalan soylemez"
Czech star Karel Gott sang it with the Zdeněk Borovec's lyrics "Měl jsem rád a mám" — the singer remembers in the song lyrics about his old girl friends.
