All Night, All Day (Angels Watching Over Me)

History & Origin

All Night, All Day (Angels Watching Over Me) is a traditional African-American spiritual that has been passed down through generations as both a comfort song and a children's lullaby. Its simple, repeated assurance — that angels are watching through both the night and the day — carries a quiet power that has made it enduring across many traditions.

The song belongs to the great body of African-American spirituals that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, songs that served simultaneously as expressions of faith, coded communication, and emotional sustenance in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. While the precise origin of this particular song cannot be attributed to a single composer, it was well established in oral tradition by the time it began appearing in published hymnals and songbooks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In its modern life as a children's lullaby, the song retains its essential character — a gentle, unhurried reassurance that the world is watched over, that the night holds nothing to fear. It is one of the most beautiful songs in the English-language children's repertoire.