Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A Baby in a Treetop?!

Yeah, I don't get lullabies. What the hell is a baby doing in his/her cradle in a treetop? And why are we singing so casually about it falling from the tree? And what happens to the baby when the cradle falls?! I am not a fan of cliffhangers.

So instead of the traditional lullabies, most of which I don't know all the words to, I find myself singing more unconventional "lullabies" to my son. Last night he got to hear "Wonderful World", initially sung by Louis Armstrong, and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" from Green Day. Those are two songs that had slower tempos that I knew all the words to ... so I sang them to him. And yes, they are two of my favorite songs so why shouldn't he hear them?

I do need to add more songs to my repetoire, though. I was thinking of finding the lyrics to Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale". That song always relaxes me, and while I know a lot of the lyrics to it, I forget the order.

How do you feel about unconventional lullabies? And what about songs with swear words in them? (I was thinking of singing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" to my son, but it has the word "damn" in it quite a bit.)

1 comment:

Aubrey said...

I used to sing Rainbow Connection to kids I baby-sat for and Lili refused to sing the part about "and down will come baby" so she changed the words to something like "and then I'll catch you" which didn't rhyme but is a lot nicer.

I'm all about singing songs you know and like to kids because at that age all they really care about is the tone of your voice; and they can tell if you love a song or not.