Lullaby Essentials

All parents, regardless of language, location or culture, share one concern: how to get the little one to sleep. Enter the lullaby. Lullabies started as a mother’s music, keying in on a baby’s innate rhythmic sense and using gentle susurrations to provide a bridge to the netherworld of sleep and dreams. The lyrics often contain thinly-veiled frustration—the oldest recorded lullaby warns a baby its crying will anger the house gods—but the tone is never angry. In time, classical composers attempted the form (think Bach), followed by entertainment behemoths like Disney, which is responsible for some of the loveliest songs in the repertoire. Julie Andrews showed it’s not always what you sing but how you sing it in Mary Poppins. Outfits like Rockabye Baby ran with that idea, proving that even songs by Coldplay, the Pixies or Adele could be repurposed, with the right instrumentation, for lulling little dreamers to sleep.