In the first commercial release on the 1956 album Offbeat Folksongs, Gibson did not mention the history of the song. The next two artists to release it, Cynthia Gooding (as "All My Trials" in 1957) and Billy Faier (as "Bahaman Lullaby" in 1959), 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 IndiesIn the late 1950s this included the Bahamas and returned with the lovely rhythm of the Islands," presumably as told to her by Darling. Faier wrote that he heard Darling sing the song "four or five times in spring 1954," when Darling would have been performing with his folk group The Tarriers. However, bibliographic folk song indexes, such as the Traditional Ballad Index"The Traditional Ballad Index - Fresno State University" eds. Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle do not mention the Bahamas as an origin, listing it as unknown.
