It covers issues big and small, tends where possible to avoid judgmental positions, and tries instead to understand what makes things the way they are. The desire to look at things with innocent doubt helps in the emergence of fresh perspectives and hopefully, of clarity of a new kind. There is something magical about a lullaby. The experience of listening to one is quite unlike anything else.
It is almost impossible to listen to one without responding to it with an emotion that one never fully understands. Even without knowing the words, we know exactly what a lullaby intends even if we are unable to put the words to that deep sense of knowledge. On the face of it, lullabies soothe, comfort and lull the awake into sleep; indeed that is their essential function.
They help babies feel protected and cocooned as they slip away into the tender arms of sleep. Mothers envelop their little ones with a musical translation of the overwhelming love they feel. Why then are lullabies almost always so sad? Why do lullabies tremble with some deep indefinable sense of liquid melancholy? Why do they ache with a nameless yearning for things lost and things that cannot be found? Think of any lullaby and you will be struck by the tinge of sweet sadness that accompanies it.
Often the words too, like in the case of the all-time favourite Rock-a-bye-baby are less than soothing. Across cultures, the lullaby carries traces of sorrow, an imprint of some final and inconsolable incompleteness. The purpose of the lullaby is anything but sad. The baby needs soothing and absolute protection from all sources of fear.
The lullaby imitates the rocking motion of the cradle with simple repetitive phrases and a basic melody. But unlike the nursery rhyme where the melody produces little emotional effect, the lullaby infuses everyone listening with a powerful sense of longing. Why is this so universally true? In some ways perhaps, the musical structure of lullabies in their desire to soothe, come close to those of dirges. The slowness and the tenderness of the tune makes it tinged with an unmistakable air of melancholia.
In that sense, it could be argued that sadness is not really intrinsic to the lullaby but merely a musical by-product. The words are not important; just as martial tunes evoke parades and religious songs generate a sense of immersive piety, so do lullabies evoke a sense of quietitude that overlaps with sadness. Comments I have to laugh and cry…. Originally written in for a prison movie, the televised performance byMr. Dear god, I weep like a child everytime. Every and I mean every time I listen to it, I will cry.
I have no idea why. It might be the progression of the chords or the placements of the accents, or string violins hitting the interior of my soul in such a personal real way that it shatters my tough wall of independence and brings me down to a pile of mush next to the dust balls on the corner of my heart. Hard to say. But, I think I just said the reasons. I am equally moved by films that are thoughtfully explored. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
All All. But as the inequality gap between genders has narrowed in modern India, he added, recent lullabies have changed to reflect that. In response to such songs, children would cry, kick or protest, Lorca wrote.
In an essay published in , the late folk artist and researcher Bess Lomax Hawes had a similar observation about American lullabies. In every traditional American lullaby, caregivers are somewhere else: hunting, for example, or out watching sheep or shaking dreamland trees.
The context is a culture that values independence and strength in its children. But the tradeoff is the separation strain experienced by the postpartum mother. Support Provided By: Learn more. Thursday, Nov The Latest. World Agents for Change. Health Long-Term Care. For Teachers. NewsHour Shop.
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