I first heard this song from a street musician in 1960, in Culver City; he played and sang in Culver Center, an early shopping mall in Southern California. I found out he was blind. (I was eleven years old at the time.)
About two years later I heard part of the song when I was waking up one morning:
A rusty old halo, some worn-out old wings,
And a threadbare old robe full of patches.
I woke up crying, thinking about someone having to go through eternity so shabbily caparisoned.
Many years later, when I started doing searches on the Internet, I found the song’s title associated with Hoyt Axton. Unfortunately,* he made a version of the song in the 70s; it turned out–acording to YouTube–that The Browns had made a much earlier version of the song; and when I heard that *version I recognized it. (They had also recorded “The Old Lamplighter” and “The Three Bells,” which also bring me to tears.) 
So what I want to know is who wrote the song (lyrics and music), and when.
Bob Miller wrote it, I got that much. When, I couldn’t track down.
I can’t say it reduced me to tears–seems to me the narrator needs to get the beam out of his own eye and re-read the Bible passage that tells you to “Judge not…”
The narrator? 
I did not remember any of the verses, unfortunately. If I had, the issue and my reaction would haved been considerably different.
When I did a Google search on the song title, I found the lyrics, and they describe, not some poor ill-fated shlub, but a greedy, stingy rich man who wouldn’t give anyone a dime. (Cf. Luke 16:19-31.) And rather than being an unhappy victim, he is getting his just deserts by the shabby raiments.
nevermind
“Narrator,” yes. The song is told from the point of view of the man’s neighbor.
That’s Bob Merrill, actually. Mahalia Jackson recorded it in 1954, but I don’t know when it was composed.