We Three Kings

John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote “We Three Kings,” first called “Three Kings of Orient,” around 1857 for a Christmas pageant, while he was the first music teacher at the General Theological Seminary in New York. Unusually for the time he wrote both the words and the tune, and he did not print it until 1863, in his own Carols, Hymns, and Songs. It is generally called the first Christmas carol written in the United States to become widely popular; the Oxford Book of Carols (1928) called it one of the most successful of modern composed carols. Hopkins planned it for three solo voices, one for each king, each singing a verse about his gift — gold, frankincense or myrrh — with everyone joining for the first and last verses and the refrain. The earliest recording SecondHandSongs lists is by the Carol Singers, made on July 9, 1917.