The Timeless Power and Beauty of a Lullaby

When I recorded Mothers of the World, I spent a year researching ancient, traditional lullabies from around the globe, and discovered an unimagined richness of beautiful music and intriguing lyrics from all cultures. And while the style and content of these songs may distil our cultural differences, they also transcend them.

Lullabies are a universal human thread that has remained constant for millennia. Through the ages, people of every race and culture have sung to their children, pouring out their hearts in that most expressive instrument, the human voice. Passed from generation to generation, the lullaby is our first, and never forgotten, love song. No matter where or when, the message is the same: I love you.

Our outward lives may have changed from rural to high-tech, but the essence of human love has not. No one knows just how or when traditional lullabies sprang into being. Yet the lyrics give us a glimpse of those who sang them first - filled with vivid images of their daily lives, and reflecting their traditions and beliefs.

We tend to think of mothers, and more often today of fathers, singing a lullaby while rocking a child in their arms. But traditionally, mothers have had their hands full while they work, so lullabies are also addressed to a baby in a cradle (explaining the invention of the foot-rocking cradle), or to an infant strapped to it’s mother’s back, or carried by a grandmother, sister or friend.

Why do lullabies have such a powerful effect on us?

In part, because they arouse such deep memories of comfort, love, and safety. Lullabies impart both our hopes and fears in a moment of unguarded tenderness and run the gamut of emotions from joy to despair. Usually they express a feeling of intimacy and tenderness. But a lullaby may also be a prayer, a lament, a threat, a fantasy, a promise, a bribe or a heartfelt dream. Sometimes funny or wistful, bitter or sweet, most often a lullaby is simple, beautiful and deeply sincere. The child may be too young to understand the words that more often may have a deeper meaning for the mother.

Many lullabies also have a spiritual flavour. They may be prayers, chants, or benedictions. Lullaby lyrics express the faith of those who sing them: from Afro-Cuban invocations to the Orishas and Aboriginal songs to the Creator, to Muslim prayers, Jewish blessings, and Christian lullabies invoking the protection of angels.

Many of the great composers have written lullabies, including Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms. We even have pop lullabies never intended for babies, romantic lullabies, lullabies in opera and theatre, and lullabies in the movies.

Most of us can’t remember being gently held as an infant. But music, particularly lullaby music, can rekindle that subliminal memory and feeling.

Lullabies also touch us on a physical level because of the principle of entrainment. Our brainwave patterns, heart rate, and breathing are all affected by music, partially explaining the calming effect that lullabies have on our bodies and our emotions.

First observed in the 17th century by Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, entrainment is the tendency for oscillating bodies near each other to vibrate in phase or resonate together. The phenomenon of entrainment is universal, appearing in physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology as well as music. Lullabies can have a powerful physical and emotional effect on humans because of rhythmic, melodic, and dynamic entrainment.

Lullabies are a fundamental and universal expression of the human spirit. Civilizations may rise and fall, societies change, languages and cultures evolve, but lullabies will endure.

I hope that you will enjoy my first recording of lullabies from around the world, and that it will transport you to that place of comfort, reflection and peace.

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