The World's Lullabies

 Dear PRI,       Someday, when I am a bit older, I want to have kids. I wrote this song for them. It incoporates, in an abstract manner, some of the most beautiful images of New England. It also doubles as a lullaby for any age and uses a simple guitar riff that my father (who plays guitar once in a great while) came up with as a teenager. The lyrics and melody are original. Please enjoy my little piece the world. Best Regards,Nathan Walkowicz

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...

This is in response to @PRI's tweet to me. Here is a lullaby from Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, from the Tamil movie titled "Thalapathy" (Commander), released in 1991. This song is a lullaby for a teen-mom, whose child was abandoned due to a mishap beyond her control. Maestro Ilaiyaraaja's tune captures not only the birth pangs of this Mom reminising her loss at a later age, constantly in search...

Lalayee, a lullaby in Farsi, by Mahsa Vahdat

Julieta Szewach performed the vocals for this song, with lyrics written by Silvia Schujer. Both grew up in Argentina. The pair worked with Mariano A. Fernández on a book of lullabies, including this one. The lyrics translate to "There was a little bunny / Who wouldn't go to sleep / At night he waited / For the day to arrive. / Softly the mama rabbit sang to him / Sweet little bunyy go to sleep / If you close your eyes / You will float into the clouds / And a...

This is one of the fantastic lullabies scored by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, in the mid 1980s. This particular link I have posited above is from the Telugu original. It is from the movie Swathi Muthyam. This movie went on to win several awards. This song is also sung by one of the legendary singers of Indian cinema, Ms. P. Susheela. This song has been tuned in other regional languages, including Tamil and has been one of the meed 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.  

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...

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 friend Maddie Welch used to sing this song to her children, just as her mother sang it to her when she was growing up in Puerto Rico. The lyrics are about a cute little seashell hiding in the sand, and if the sea sweeps it away, "I'll never be able to find you again!" The first phrase, "Who made you?" reminds me of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, both "Tiger Tiger Burning Bright" and "Little Lamb, Who Made Thee?" Maddie gave me permission...

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...

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.

Dear PRI,             To live is to have a positive effect. Enjoy this original! Best Regards,Nathan

Beautiful lullaby by Mary C. Carpenter that I sing to my kids & enjoy myself.

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 traditional Japanese folk lullaby comes to us by way of Akaniji at Wikimedia Commons.

Karen Matheson is the lead singer of one of Scotland' most popular bands. She's been eprfoming Gaelic musics since she was a child. This song, (pronounced in EE-jag ar-ah-gitch) is translated to mean The Silver Whistle. It was written in the 1700s originally. In it, Matheson sings "Who will play the silver whistle? Since the song of my king has come to Scotland on a great ship with masts of silver. Welcome, welcome, may you be desired and famous. May...

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...

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...

I thought my mother was a genius to invent so many pretty ways to assure us, our dad would always fix things if they went wrong. Later, I learned this was the most traditional song she ever sang to us and not a song she'd made up just for her children.  But I still think she was a genius to remember these stanzas in order.

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.

I don't have any children of my own, but thinking of these tender little ones inspired me to write a lullaby or two for the day that I will.

I was one of 10 children and my mother used to sing this as a way of giving comfort.  Before she died, I did a little video of her sharing a snippet of it.

It's Rickie Lee Jones singing, but it's her father Richard Jones who wrote this wonderful song.  Rickie Lee often plays this today.  It just shows how lullabies are passed on from generation to generation.

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...

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

Takashi Hirayasu is a well-known musician from the Japanese island of Okinawa. In this son, Hirayasu plays a special, three-stringed instrument called a shamisen. Chuei Yoshikawa, a Japanese guitar player, accompanies. The song in English is titled Song from Asadoya. This song is courtesy of Putumayo's Asian Dreamland album.