the lullaby singer

“Papa, sing me a song. I can’t sleep,” nudged my children. They are requesting a lullaby that I used to sing.

So, I get near them and sang lullabies, making my voice as soft as I could. Before I know, their body softens and they slept peacefully. It works like magic. And I enjoyed every bit of it.

It is a good time for building strong relationships. A good time to cherish that someone in the world really enjoyed your presence and voicing around them. It is a great privilege, being able to do that, I would say.

Wait, what is a Lullaby? A lullaby is a song to lull young ones to sleep. While its primary objective is to put young ones to sleep, the wordings could be a reflection of the surroundings, happenings, and cultural perspectives.

You don’t need to be a good singer in singing a lullaby. It is rarely accompanied with musical instruments. The tune and words can be easily modified to suit what the Lullaby Singer wanted to express. A certain cultural traditions had their own wording and style of singing though.

Love is the ingredient of singing a good lullaby. It is a good way of shaping young thoughts, assuring our love and security being their parents. With certain modifications or my modifications, this is one example here:

Sleep Baby Sleep, My dear darling Baby
Oh my dear baby I love you, sleep baby sleep.
Your Papa and Mummy loves you, sleep baby sleep
The angels are watching you, sleep peacefully
My dear baby, I will always love you
Sleep baby sleep……..

You can keep on adding words and verses, till your baby slept or till you are done with expressing your love. Sometimes, it can be in the form of a story too.

The Lullaby Singer could easily thrived in any kind of society, be it modern, post-modern, pre-modern society. Even in the age of technology, we are still raising human not robot or some programmed character.

Reminiscence of our childhood, a lullaby could bring back. The love, of my parents and grandparents, easily flashback in my minds. They would put me in a handmade cradle or carry me in their back while singing a lullaby gently.

Lullabies of my grandparents:

The soft patting on my backs and their back becoming softer and more comfortable as the lullaby proceeds, are my favorite childhood memories. I believe you have your cherish moments of the same experience.

Recalling those precious days; we lived in a village nearby the hills. When darkness was about to descended, Foxes barking or screaming from the nearby foothills can be heard. The hens panicked and rushed inside their pen. May be inspired by this, here is one lullaby, I could recall:

Sleep, sleep, baby sleep
Before the foxes scream, sleep my baby
If you don’t sleep, vixen might come
Oh hungry vixen! Leave my sweet child alone
My child, my love one, I will not let you take him.
Sleep baby sleep….and so on.

Since the foxes and vixen screaming were common, we felt happy and secure in our parents’ arm. So, we would easily fell asleep in their arms.

From this lullaby we, young ones, can learn that we are valued and would be protected. Our love for our parents also grew stronger.

Passionate Lullaby

A lullaby is useful in many ways: It can be a medium of feeding our best love and wisdom in their tender minds. It can be a great moment for building strong relationships. They will remember your very words when they grow up.

A lullaby could be a channel for passing on values. The values we wanted to focus depend on us. We can emphasize on the Love of God, our love for them as a parent, what we expect them to be, our culture and our traditions.

That is why, I say, it is a great privilege to be the Lullaby Singer, to my young ones. It made me felt valued, in a way.

Just as I still remember the lullabies of my parents and grandparents dearly, they would recall my Lullaby. By then, they would know what I really wanted to tell them at that time.