Napping Cheat Codes 12: Rockabye Baby!
Guilty pleasure
In 2006, Lisa Roth, sister of David Lee Roth, the greatest rock frontman of all time, decided it would be a good idea to take a bunch of pop songs and cover them as lullabies, using what sounds like a xylophone or two, a toy piano, some shakers, a güiro, and a bird caller.1 I’ve mentioned this visionary work before and wanted to take a deeper dive here.2
In late 2015, we had our first daughter, who has never been the best sleeper. As she got older, I looked for different ways of using audio (music and, with time, stories) to help her get to sleep, and it wasn’t long before I stumbled across Rockabye Baby! It’s really cute to hear pop songs done as lullabies. I remember my wife smiling the first time I played her one of the songs (I forget which one), and while we don’t use audio to help our girls get to sleep anymore, I sometimes look to Rockabye Baby! as a napping cheat code.
I’ve put together a short playlist so you can try it out for yourselves. To my ears, these songs take to the lullaby treatment better than others. I don’t think the playlist has to be very long because if it’s going to work, it will do so over the course of five songs.
Let us know what you think!
Interestingly, nobody on the initial Rockabye Baby! team had children at the time.
I’ve done some very limited research and haven’t been able to find any info re the history of Rockabye Baby!