Songfacts®:

• This is a traditional minor-key Spanish carol from around the 15th or 16th century. USA Today, noting that Archuleta sings it in Spanish and that he is over half Hispanic himself, asked him if he speaks Spanish fluently. He replied: "Just a little bit. Both of my parents are fluent, so it's pretty embarrassing that I'm not. But it's still a big part of my family. All my mom's side speaks Spanish. I speak to my grandparents in Spanish. Slowly. And they're patient with me! But I do speak with them in Spanish and carry on conversations with them."
• Archuleta explained to USA Today why he chose to record this carol. He replied: "Well, 'Riu Riu Chiu' is in Spanish. I'm not going to do, like, 'Mi Burrito Sabanero,' you know, or any of those kinds of songs, but I wanted to do something in Spanish. I wanted to do songs that people weren't really familiar with and weren't used to hearing. 'Riu Riu Chiu' was in Spanish, so it was a way to give to the Latin side of me and the Latin audience. It was mainly to have a Spanish flair added to the album and to have something unique to add to the album, like 'Pat-A-Pan' was. We listened to a bunch of different versions and arrangements, just to see what people did to make them interesting. There were some that were really interesting, or really simple, like little kids singing them, or a guy on a guitar. It was like, 'Okay, let's see how I can make it my own version.'"