Lullabies and time machines

By JoAnne Young

It was a late night in March, in decades past, that I first began to sing those songs. A first-time mother on a first night home with a newborn I knew little about, except that I loved him and I was afraid for him to cry. His pediatrician had informed us on his second day that he had a hole in his heart, one that would likely close within six months, so … no worries. 

 

But worry I did, and there I was next to his crib on his third night, and he was wailing. I picked him up, sat down and rocked with all my tired strength. And I began to sing. A lullaby. His first lullaby. The first song that came to mind. 

 

There is a young cowboy who lives on the range.

His horse and his saddle are his only companions.

He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons, 

Waiting for summer his pastures to change.  

 

That’s the night, desperate for him to melt into sleep, that Sweet Baby James became our family lullaby, me singing quietly as they tucked into my arms or snuggled onto a shoulder. I was more eager to sleep than they were much of the time. 

 

James Taylor wrote the first part of the song in 1969, a cowboy lullaby, while he was driving home to North Carolina to see his firstborn nephew, named after him. The second half of the song was written on the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. It’s a lullaby to baby James and a lullaby to himself about the nature of belief and what makes one comfortable. It becomes rather spiritual at the end, he has explained.

 

My little ones got a healthy dose of James Taylor, as I also sang You Can Close Your Eyes. 

 

Oh, the sun is surely sinking down
But the moon is slowly rising.
So this old world must still be spinning round
And I still love you.

So close your eyes.
You can close your eyes, it's alright.
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song when I'm gone.

 

With my daughter, I added a second lullaby, a version of Mama Cass’s Dream a Little Dream of Me.

 

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singin' in the sycamore trees
Dream a little dream of me …

 

If the babies’ blue eyes were still fighting sleep after several rounds of those favorites, I would add traditional nursery songs about sleep and patty cakes and shiny little ponies.

 

My kids grew up and sang Sweet Baby James to their babies. My son added “Mandy” to his repertoire, changing the name to Finnley. Parents frequently change names and lyrics in lullabies to customize them. My grandson, Ky, fell asleep at naptime and nighttime to Enya’s Shepherd Moons, A Day Without Rain and The Memory of Trees, which he listens to still, at 18.

 

Musician Jon Batiste calls music a sense memory, a time machine, something that can aid healing. 

 

It was his story of writing lullabies for his wife Suleika Jaouad when she was in the hospital being treated for leukemia that got me thinking about those lullabies I so fondly remember, the special James Taylor lullaby that became the mother-son dance at our youngest’s wedding. 

 

Batiste composed hours of lullaby themes for her he never intended for release, at a time when he and his wife couldn’t be together. One did make it to his recordings: Butterfly, which has been nominated for a Grammy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR115pxSjWM

 

Lullabies are intended to soothe, both the baby and the parent, but in some societies they are also used to pass down cultural knowledge or tradition. They can help develop communication skills and regulate behavior. They can enhance bonding and nurturing between baby and parent.  

 

They can also sometimes contain shadows. Cradles and babies falling from trees, infants carried off by fairies, mothers dreaming of holding their little ones, but when they awaken they’re wrong and the mothers begin to cry. Music therapists have said lullabies sustain the spirit but also enable resilience during times of vulnerability.

 

My husband remembers his father sang The Night that Paddy Murphy Died at his bedtime, complete with lyrics about taking the ice right off the corpse and putting it on the beer. 

 

As Christmas draws near, we often sing some of the most familiar lullabies of the year. Away in a Manger. Silent Night, and the darker but beautiful, In the Bleak Midwinter.

 

I would add River, by Joni Mitchell, to winter lullabies. And this by Judy Collins, The Fallow Way, as a good adult lullaby, because more and more we need them, too.

 

I'll learn to love the fallow way
When winter draws the valley down
And stills the rivers in their storm
And freezes all the little brooks
Time when our steps slow to the song
Of falling flakes and crackling flames
When silver stars are high and still
Deep in the velvet of the night sky

 

The crystal times the silence times
I'll learn to love their quietness
When deep beneath the glistening snow
The black earth dreams of violets

I'll learn to love the fallow times.

Peace and sweet winter dreams. 

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