The World's Lullabies

This 'Prairie Lullaby' was passed down from my great grandmother to grandmother to mother to me, now to my daughter. As the story goes, this was sung to babies in our family back to the time we lived in a sod house in Western Nebraska. My Aunt also sung this quietly to my Mom the day before she passed away.

This is a French lullaby every parent -- and kid -- knows. ("Il etait un petit navire" or "There was a little ship.") My kids, who are half-French, grew up hearing it all the time. But here's the wild part: the lullaby itself sounds soft and soothing, but if you listen closely the lyrics are actually about a young shipwrecked sailor who is about to be eaten by his fellow sailors!  (You can read the English lyrics...

Marta Gómez first started singing her the church choir in her native Cali, Colombia. She often writes her own songs, but this one, "Heavenly One" is a famous classic song from Mexico. The song translates, roughly to "Ay, ay, ay, ay / Sing and don't cry / Because singing makes the heart happy, my heavenly one." It's often played faster, by mariachi bands, but Gómez has turned it into a lullaby. This song is courtesy of...

Not really a lullaby but I like to play this Irish tune late at night when I'm sleepy. It's called Drowsy Maggie.  

An absolutely beautiful lullaby from an artist who appears to be completely hidden from the Internet. I can't find out anything about him online. The song is from a 1999 CD called African Lullaby. The whole album is great, actually.

A mongulu is an egg shaped dwelling made of a framework of branches covered with large overlapping leaves. Here six women in a mongulu have transformed a melody from a ceremonial framework into a beautiful simple lullaby.

My father played his guitar and sang a very politically incorrect drinking song to my brothers and me as a lullaby. It begins (and you have to imagine this sung in a soft, loving tone) "Oh, the night that Paddy Murphy died, I never will forget. We all got stinkin' drunk that night and some ain't sober yet" -- and it gets worse from there! But Daddy's soothing voice sent us off to dreamland every time.

I sang the same song to my children when they were...

See, even PRI's "Type" choice does not have one for this lullaby, cleverly tuned by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, the musical legend from the southern state of Tamil Nadu in Madras, India.The situation for this lullaby goes like this. The hero is a mentally immature, yet, innocent man. He composes an epistolary lullaby -- in the form of a written letter that he wants to write for his own love. The only problem is that, he doesn't know how to read and write. So, he...

Señora Santana is a lullaby that's popular throughout Latin America.  I know it as a traditional song from Mexico, but people sing it in other countries too.  My wife and I sang this every night to both my kids when they were little, hoping to start them on their way to speaking Spanish.

Spencer the Rover, a song by the Copper Family from Rottingdean, Sussex, England was a popular song of the folk circuit in the 1960s and 70's, popularized in the US by the duo John Roberts and Tony Barrand.  In a previous life as a folksinger I sang it on stage, full voice.  When my kids were screaming infants, I would sing the song slowly and softly to calm them at bedtime.  At a slow gentle pace, it takes 5 minutes to sing all 7 verses.  It helped to have...

This type of lullaby is often sung not by the mother but by the child's elder sister.  The words refer to such a situation: the elder sister asks the baby not to cry because its parents are dead and there is no one else to hear it.  This lullaby was used by the group Deep Forest in a mashup.

Famoro Dioubaté hails from Conakry, the capital of the African nation of Guinea. He grew up in a family of musicians and learned to play the balafón — a sort-of African xylophone. Douyoré is a tradition Mandingo song that translates roughly to "My child is crying for something. What siw rong? Is she hurt, or hungry? Did she have a bad dream? I don't want you to be upset." The song is played on the balafón, as well as the bolon, a three-string African bass, and...

Lullabies are often sung by the child's big sister or by an old woman who stays behind at the house whilst the mother is working in the garden. If two girls or women stay home they can sing the lullaby in two parts.  In this lullaby the singer asks the baby to stop crying and sleep quietly as the mother has gone to work in the garden.  The same short phrases are sung in two parts to another melody in the second lullaby.  Recorded in Malaita, Solomon Islands in...

So serene and beautiful.

My friend Tyler just had a baby a few months ago. I shared on my Facebook page that we were doing this project with lullabies — and he mentioned he'd recently been browsing iTunes for lullabies. He said he kept coming across songs from bands like Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Pink Floyd — but turned into a lullaby. So I went looking and found Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, in lullaby form. Take a listen. And if you're wanting to compare,...

This is Johannes Brahms' Wiegenlied, performed by Ernestine Schumann-Heink in 1915, as shared at Wikimedia Commons.

This song was written about my little brother when he was just a baby- here are the lyrics: Close your eyes and let sand sprinkle inDrift away let your dreams beginTake a ride and journey inside your imaginationand I'll be by your sideyes I'll be by your sideso sleep little child Close your eyes and count floating sheepLose conscious though 'til you fall fast asleepDon't make a sound and don't move around 'til you're dreaming deepTomorrow's far awaySo far...

In this lullaby, a mother, Wewa Miriewa sings a hypnotic repetitive lullaby to put her child to sleep.

Translation

Ao, ao, ao, your mother went there, there, there,

To collect shells, to collect shells, to collect shells,

To the garden, to the garden, to the garden,

To the creek, to the creek, to the creek,

Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.

This song is about a girl whose boyfriend is very sick.  She sends for the doctor to save him.  His name is Vaiao.  Recorded in Samoa in 1978.

This is what my mother sang to us every night before we went to bed. 

Sweet! :)

Beautifully simple & sweet! :)

This lubally is typical in the provinicia of Granada, Andalucia.Federico García Lorca took it and put it on Bodas de Sangre,one of his most famous plays for theater.

The cycle of life passes from lovers, to married with children, to grandparents and then oblivion.  (You can sing the last part as sadly drawn out to the point it makes the child laugh at the ridiculousness.)My mother did not like singing this one to us, as the song kept us awake too long.  We'd anticipate the next funny sounds she might make to entertain us through the cycles.  But we pressed her for the song and she obliged enough times that I remembered it...

My mother sang this song to us at night.  We requested it often.  I loved the image of the old baboon combing his hair by the light of the moon.  And we always laughed gently about the poor monkey's mistake.  

I wrote this song in late 1998, when my kids were nearly grown. It's one of the few songs that I wrote from the guitar notes, rather than starting with a lyrical phrase as I usually do. The notes suggested a lullabye, and that's what it became. For me, it was deeply resonant with that feeling of love for my children, and brought memories of when I did, indeed, hold them and sing and rock them to sleep. I hope its a universal lullabye that brings that feeling...

One from a disc of sweet nurturing essence.Lay back into this one. Let it embrace you and your child. Feel safe and loved again....."Loveland" Julie RustBill

Last month Irish poet Micheal O'Siadhail gave a reading at my Boston-area college which included this poem on the nonsense syllables of lullabies in the world's many languages, sung to the world's many darlings.LullabyStains are in, stains are in, The instant our songs beginTo rockabye my darling baby Dreaming up worlds of maybe.Then byssa, byssa barnet Beddie byes my snowy Arne,Quieter now and slumber-bound, Rest in lulls of milky sound.Ninna nanna, ninna...

Barely a night goes by when our 4 year-old daughter doesn't ask us to sing her "Over the Rainbow" after we switch off the light. We usually comply but each often slip in something else as well. One is something I've been singing her at bedtime since almost day one--Paul McCartney's "I Will," from the Beatles' White Album, which I never realized till I had a kid is just the perfect bedtime song. But wanting to bring her lullabies/musical education more into the...

I made this up one night when I needed to calm both me and my kid down. I composed it to match the rhythm of my rocking chair. I was feeling desperate for some rest and making a plea to God for help.

While a lullaby doesn't come to mind, my Dad used to sing us kids a "waking up" song.  Could that be called a reverse lullaby? One of his favorites was the song from Singing in the Rain, also sung by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms. So in tribute to Mr. Rooney, and in honor of my father's cheerful-and-often-unsuccessful attempt to rouse me and my siblings out of bed, here's my reverse lullaby.