The next two artists to release it, Cynthia Gooding (as "All My Trials" in 1957[5]) and Billy Faier (as "Bahaman Lullaby" in 1959[6]), both wrote in their albums' liner notes that they each learned the song from Erik Darling.
Gooding explained it was "supposed to be a white spiritual that went to the British West Indies[7] and returned with the lovely rhythm of the Islands," presumably as told to her by Darling.
[10] The song tells the story of a mother on her death bed, comforting her children, "Hush little baby, don't you cry./You know your mama's bound to die," because, as she explains, "All my trials, Lord,/Soon be over."
The message—that no matter how bleak the situation seemed, the struggle would "soon be over"—propelled the song to the status of an anthem, recorded by many of the leading artists of the era.
There is an allegory of the river Jordan, the crossing of which represents the Christian experience of death as something which "...chills the body but not the soul."