Ethan Hein
Solitude – Billie Holiday
14 November 2017
I could have filled this whole playlist with Duke Ellington songs, or Billie Holiday recordings. Recordings of Billie Holiday singing Duke Ellington songs are almost too much musical pleasure to bear. This one falls into that large category of songs that are maybe too depressing for lullabies if you think about the lyrics too hard, but the melody is so perfect, so why ruin a good thing?..
Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinéad O’Connor
31 October 2017
Anguished breakup songs are maybe not super appropriate for lullaby purposes, but our culture has a lot more songs aimed at lovers than babies, so we have to make do with what we’ve got…
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ – Michael Jackson
24 October 2017
You might think this song belongs more on a playlist for dancing your baby to sleep. It does indeed work great for that, though my kids prefer “Beat It” for dance party purposes. But like a lot of the best uptempo songs, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” also works well if you sing it slowly.
Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
10 October 2017
“Free Fallin’” is my favorite Tom Petty song. I know that makes me sound basic, since it was his biggest hit, and the rest of his catalog is so wide and deep. But “Free Fallin'” really does it for me. In the wake of Petty’s death, I found the multitrack stems and listened to them closely. Later on, while singing the song to my daughter, I realized why I think it’s so cool: its ruthless, fearless minimalism.
Blessings – Chance The Rapper
3 October 2017
Making this playlist shows me just how wide the distance is between most of the music I enjoy listening to and the music I can sing. Hip-hop is a case in point. I love listening to it, but I sound too much like Niles Crane to really participate. Also, rap is not generally a very lullaby-friendly genre. Or so I thought, until I encountered the mellifluous sounds of Chancellor Johnathan Bennett, better known to the world as Chance The Rapper…
Mood Indigo – Duke Ellington
25 September 2017
I first heard this when I was walking through my college’s campus center. A student jazz group called the Hot Sextet (ha, ha) was playing in the lounge area, and the melody stopped me in my tracks. Ellington tunes often have this quality of intense nostalgia, even when you’re hearing them for the first time.
Love The One You’re With – The Isley Brothers
19 September 2017
Singing quietly in a darkened room is not the only way to get a baby to fall asleep. You can also dance with them to loud, beat-driven music in a room full of people. Babies like all kinds of grooves, from gangsta rap to eighties pop to death metal. My favorite thing to dance to is funk, so my kids are grooving to a lot of that.
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Aretha Franklin
12 September 2017
I’m a white guy, so I sing this song more like Art Garfunkel . Everyone loves that Simon and Garfunkel recording, and it was a hit for them back in the day, but have you listened to it lately?
On the Sunny Side of the Street – Jimmy Smith
5 September 2017
This recording doesn’t have the lyrics, but you can look those up. What it does have is so much soul. So, so much soul. Jimmy Smith’s organ playing is so buttery and smooth it practically clogs your arteries. Between 1956 and 1964, he did forty recording sessions for Blue Note, and all of them are killers.
A Thousand Times Adieu – Tim Eriksen
29 August 2017
Tim Eriksen is the best folk singer you’ve never heard of. By “folk singer,” I don’t mean “affable white person with an acoustic guitar,” but rather ”an interpreter of old and ownerless music.” Tim focuses mostly on traditional songs from Appalachia and New England, but he also sprinkles in punk rock, Bosnian pop, and some South Indian classical as well…
Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash
15 August 2017
I hadn’t planned on including this song in the playlist, because while it’s a great one, it would never have occurred to me to sing it as a lullaby. But a few weeks ago, it came up in iTunes shuffle, and both my kids reacted to it immediately. My son wanted to hear it a second time. Then he asked for it a third time. Then a fourth. After nine repeats, we made him stop and go to bed. The next day he asked to hear it on continuous repeat for forty-five minutes or so. Evidently, it made an impression.
Bring It On Down To My House – Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
7 August 2017
I self-identify as a New York Jew, but I also have some ancestry from the Lutheran Midwest. If my paternal grandparents had gone out dancing in South Dakota in the 1930s, there’s a good chance they would have been dancing to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.