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What non-lullaby songs were you sung as a child?
I have a new niece and I'm making a list of songs which we can play for her naptime when we babysit. I have some Raffi songs and my childhood lullabies (Edelweiss from my mom and Moonshadow from my dad), as well as some calm songs from my Spotify playlist.
But it made me wonder, what songs did your parents sing when you were young? Children's songs? Disney? Pop? Metallica?
I'm also interested in whether you think it's best to keep a small list and rotate through, for comfort's sake, or if it's also okay to have a wider variety of songs as lullabies.
You are my sunshine. Whilst the lyrics are quite disturbing (check out the Dead South) it is a calming melody and one I played to my granddaughter when we had to look after her for 6 months
My son however used to go to sleep to repeats of the William Tell Overture. He has turned 31 and still has it in his playlist so I don't know lol
Me too! You've just flashed me back many decades to a memory of being in a high chair. My mom sang it to me while doing dishes.
Thank you internet friend!
My mother used to like singing one bourbon one Scotch one beer. And occasionally we'd sing I drink alone. Now she's an alcoholic but I didn't make the connection at the time still good songs
It's interesting to think about how your lullaby choices reflect on you as a person. In retrospect, I think my mom's lullabies mostly betrayed that she took many years of French. And my dad's definitely suggest that he didn't get many lullabies and didn't put a ton of thought into finding his own, since I think he only ever sang the one song!
MY parents? Hah! [Rant redacted]
Anyway some of my favourites that we sung to exhaustion were made up melodies that incorporates the child's name. We just basically sung the same one every time we did the same activity, and it became part of the routine for that same activity. I would suggest you and the parents use the same exact lullaby.
For entertainment and day to day fun, look up Casper Babypants :) enjoy!
Oof, you make a good point, I definitely showed my bias in that question. I apologize for the assumption.
This is adorable! I feel like I would struggle to remember a self-written melody, but I actually do this all the time with my cat, using existing melodies.
My sister and I are definitely doing some coordinating! She is bringing the Disney side of things and I'm doing my best, haha. Thank you for the response, and the recommendation!
I’ma big fan of find songs you like to sing/listen to. Parenthood is too hard to suffer through terrible songs just because.
I do find that repeating the same song has a Pavlov aspect to it where they get used to falling asleep to a certain song.
Not me as a kid, but as a dad I sing my kids a slightly altered version of Sweet Baby James by James Taylor or Beautiful Boy by John Lennon. Every night since our first was born, at least if we're together.
“Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” with some, urm…creative rewrites. If you look up the lyrics you’ll understand why!
Alice's Restaurant
Hell just a load of Guthrie Sr and Jr.
One of my parents used to sing us old folk ballads that basically tell stories. So it was like a bedtime story and a lullaby all rolled into one.
My wife was living with her cousin for a little while when they had a very young toddler boy, and he LOVED the song "Battle Symphony" by Linkin Park. The lyrics are kid friendly, positive, and it's a lot of fun to sing and dance around to.
My mom would sing Close to You by the Carpenters to me when I was a baby. I couldn't possibly remember her doing it, but that is still the prettiest song I've ever heard, and I'm sure my mom had an impact on my feelings about it.
This is close to how I now feel about Edelweiss.
I first heard "Close to You" as a cover in the movie Mirrormask. I'll be honest, I'm not sure if you'd enjoy it since you have a relationship with the song already, but I found its minor-key haunting nature incredibly touching and beautiful. The original is also lovely, but the clockwork cover will always be my favorite.
My grandma would sing me a song called Les filles du Canada which she learned from her grandmother (my great great grandmother) who was French Canadian.
One lyric in particular sticks in my memory:
Y'ont du poil aux jambes
Comme les vieux soldats
They have hair on their legs
Like old soldiers
It used to crack me up. It still does, but it used to too. And growing up in California, that's all I knew how to say in French for a very long time.
There's almost no trace of it on the internet, but it was basically a softer version of this.
My parents sang regional folk songs to me as a child, which I hope to be able to sing to a child of my own one day.
Slight curveball, but still half relevant to the topic. Rockabye Baby! do really fun covers of pop tracks, in lullabies.
You have done me a serious favor with this recommendation, thank you!
I don't remember being sung any songs as a child, but I did sing a few for my niece and daughter, most either sea shanties or somewhat ribald (they were too young to know better).
Drunken Sailor
Paddy Lay Back
The Moose Song (the dirty one that begins with "when I was a young man, I used to like girls"; this always calmed my niece down when she was upset)
Roads to Moscow
The Jolly Tinker
The Minstrel Boy
The March of Cambreadth
Probably others I've forgotten.
I would sing my daughter first day of my life by bright eyes
As a parent I sang songs like you are my sunshine, red river valley, long way home, and bicycle built for two to my kids at night.