Time for bed

Children don’t need to be put to bed with dreary old nursery rhymes. Here is an alternative selection of songs and tunes to help them drift off for a peaceful night’s sleep. 

Of course, there are some classics – songs that were recorded with children in mind, such as The Beatles’ “Good Night” or “Little Girl Blue” by a young Nina Simone. And why not the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” or Pink Floyd’s “If”, a husky ballad from the Atom Heart Mother album? Soft songs can be found hidden within the greatest discographies – take Amy Winehouse’s stripped down version of “Love is a Losing Game” for example. 

To get away from a purely Europe-US focus, we also travel to Iceland with the crackling electronics of Björk and the ageless music of Ólöf Arnalds. Then to Hawaii, with a tour de force from the late Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, who sings a sublime mix of the classics “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World”. Further south, Victor Jara’s “Te Recuerdo Amanda” blends a love song with the demands of Chilean workers’ in the 1960s, while the reclusive king of bossa nova, João Gilberto, sings “Águas de Março”, an absolute classic, written by Antônio Carlos Jobim. 

A short flight and we arrive in the French West Indies, where the Congolese group Ry-co Jazz imported rumba. However, their song “Nostalgie” is more like a waltz, as is the soothing “Soldadi” from Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab, more used to a West African funk fed by high-life. Another sonic step further is the rather modern reinterpretation of Amália Rodrigues’ Portuguese fado by young singer Lina and electro producer Raül Refree.

At the end, two languid instrumental glissandos offer listening children the chance to travel as much in the melody as in sound and space. First with Brian Eno, who focuses his ambient sounds towards the cosmos on “An Ending”, composed as the soundtrack to a film about the Apollo mission’s conquest of the Moon. Then the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whose very minimalist “Spiegel im Spiegel” could be extended for hours of peaceful beauty. Good night, sleep tight.