Composition
De Burgh, who had just signed his first recording contract with A&M Records, was broke and "staying at a friend's flat" in August 1974 [4] when he read Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken. The book made him think "what if the star of Bethlehem was a space craft, and what if there is a benevolent being or entity in the universe keeping an eye on the world and our foolish things that we do to each other?" A fan of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, whose 1919 poem [5] "The Second Coming" suggested that every 2,000 years or so there would be a major cataclysmic event happening, de Burgh saw the birth of Christ as "such an event and then 2,000 years later there would be a similar" one. He imagined "the nativity scene, the thing hovering over and I could see the shepherds in the fields and this weird, ethereal music was drifting into the air and they were 'what the heck is that'?" But he "had no ideas about trying to write a Christmas song or a hit record." The space theme was enhanced by the then-novel use of a string synthesizer on the track. [6] [7] The song was recorded at Air Studios in London. [8] It was "hugely popular" around the world, particularly in Germany, Canada and Brazil. [9]
"A Spaceman Came Travelling" failed to chart when it was first released as a single, but de Burgh has said it was "much better to have a regular recurring song than a hit for three weeks". [10] The song receives regular airplay on UK radio during the festive season. Among the many places de Burgh has performed "Spaceman" have been the Kremlin and in 2015, Bethlehem. [11] In December 2023 he performed the song with a full backing band and a gospel choir in Stadtcasino, Basel, Switzerland.
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