Tag Archives: lullaby

The Trollmom’s Lullaby

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: April 25, 2016
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English, French, Portuguese

Informant was a 20 year old female who was born in Sweden and currently lives in the United States. She came to visit me.

Song:

När trollmor har lagt sina elva små troll

och bundit dom fast i svansen,

då sjunger hon sakta för elva små trollen

de vackraste ord hon känner:

Ho aj aj aj aj buff,

ho aj aj aj aj buff,

ho aj aj aj aj buff buff!

Ho aj aj aj aj buff.

Informant: There’s a song that my mom would always sing to me in Swedish about trolls. It’s called Trollmors Vaggivisa, which literally translates into The Trollmom’s Lullaby. It’s about how this trollmom puts her 11 kids to bed, and the kids are trolls obviously, and how she sings a song to them after, and then it literally says when troll mom puts her 11 small trolls to bed and ties up their tails.

Collector: Wait, do trolls have tails?

Informant: These trolls do. And then the last part of the song says that she sings slowly to the 11 small trolls the prettiest words she knows. And then it goes like “ho ai ai ai ai buff ho ai ai ai ai buff ho ai ai ai ai buff buff ho ai ai ai ai buff.”

Collector: What does that mean?

Informant: It doesn’t mean anything. It’s giberish. It’s just supposed to be the prettiest words that the mom knows. And my mom used to sing this to me when I was a kid, and she has always sung it to us even when we were older. When I was in France and missing Sweden, she would always sing that to calm us down and put us to sleep, actually. It reminded me of home.

Collector: Why do you liked this song?

Informant: I think there was always something comforting about my mom singing it to me. It was calming and it made me feel like I was back home in Sweden.

I found this song particularly funny, because there isn’t really any meaning to it at all. I think that’s what makes this song particularly endearing, because it’s a cute little bedtime story about trolls. Even though it’s a song about trolls, it has significant meaning for my friend, as it connects her to her Swedish culture. Being international myself, I know how hard it can be to be away from home, and how important it is to have things that can connect you back to your culture.

You Are My Sunshine-Lullaby

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 76
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: March 15, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

“And she used to sing all the time, around the house, and I did too, and she um listened to records, as I was a child, and I grew up with a lot of famous like Glenn Miller, and all that, and that kind of music, and so I have always loved music, and I have always been very thankful that God put the um the desire for music and the appreciation for music in our hearts, because how does that happen, you know? And so I think that if you have a love of music, you got that somewhere, you know it doesn’t just happen, so I suspect a person growing up in a home, without music, wont have the same level of appreciation of music that somebody like me has, I mean.

Do you have any songs that come to mind when you think of her?

Oh well she used to sing “You are my sunshine”

 

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,

you make me happy, when skies are grey.

You never know dear, how much I love you.

So please don’t take my sunshine away.”

 

It makes me cry. You know it don’t you?

She used to sing that and all kinds of songs, and she sang in the Church when she was young in Wisconsin. She sang at a Protestant Church, you know the Catholic Church was too far away, you know they had to walk in the snow and all that. But she loved all popular songs. Uh and when she hears classical music, she would say: “Can’t they play something that has a melody, that’s just noise!” She was a character.”

 

Informant: the informant was born in Chicago, and attended high school and college there, graduating with a degree in English. After marrying and having one child, she moved to Dallas, Texas where she raised three children with her husband. She is of Irish descent, her father being from Ireland, and her mother was born in Wisconsin after her parents moved from Ireland, and her heritage and tradition are very important to her. She is a grandmother of five children.

 

Analysis:

In this piece, the informant is speaking about her mother, who was born in a family of Irish immigrants who had moved to Wisconsin. Her mother was an Irish Catholic, and so is the informant. The informant was speaking about how she gained her appreciation of music from her mother, and she would learn songs from listening to her mother sing around the house. One of those songs was “You are my sunshine.” This song has a special significance because the tune and the lyrics are very moving to the informant. The informant in turn passed down this song to her children, who sing it to their children.

The reasons that this song makes the informant cry and has special significance could be because of the relationship that she had with her mother, who taught her the song, as well as the poignancy of the lyrics. When associating a simple song like this with a loved one, it brings to mind all of the love that is associated with that person. Therefore, when singing the song and saying “please don’t take my sunshine away,” the simple lyrics are moving in that the represent losing the love that is associated with the singer of that song, who is often a loved one.

This song was often sung by the mother to her daughter as a sort of lullaby, which has a special significance as well. That is to say that the lullaby is meant to be a comforting tune for the child. When a mother sings this to a child she is singing about her love for her child. Therefore, when the informant was recalling this song, she could have been thinking about her mother, who had passed away several years ago, bringing back comforting memories of her. This song demonstrates how such a simple tune, and simple lyrics may have such profound emotional ties that lead to the passing down of this song as a lullaby from mothers to their children.

In addition, the comment that the informant’s mother made about classical music lacking a melody and just being “noise,” is representative of the separation of folk music and classical music. While classical music was taught in a strict manner through the aristocracy and apart from the people, folk music flourished with the rest of the population and was picked up by other people. It is clear that the informant’s mother had an appreciation for this folk music, while maintaining distaste for classical music. This could also be correlated with her Irish descent, as the Irish have a strong tradition of folk music.

The Three Bears Lullaby

Nationality: American
Age: 90
Occupation: Retired Teacher
Residence: Oklahoma City, OK
Performance Date: March 19th, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant in this piece is my grandmother on my father’s side, Ruth, a retired teacher born in 1926 in Arkansas.

In this piece, she talks about a lullaby she used to sing to my father and aunt. She could not remember much of the lullaby, but I found the lullaby she was talking about. When I read her the following lyrics, she said they were pretty close to what she can remember.

“Once upon a time in a neat little cottage there lived three bears

One was a daddy bear and one was a mama bear and one was a wee bear

While they were out a-walking, through the deep woods a-stalking came a little girl with blonde hair

Her name was Goldilocks and upon the door she knocks but no one was there

So she walked right in and had herself a time coz she didn’t care

Then she got sleepy, went upstairs to bed, when…

Home, home, home came the three bears!

Someone’s been eating my porridge said the daddy bear,

Someone’s been eating my porridge said the mama bear,

Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!
Someone’s been sitting in my chair said the daddy bear,

Someone’s been sitting in my chair said the mama bear,

Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!

Just then Goldilocks woke up, broke up the party and beat it out of there
Bye-bye! Bye! Bye! said the daddy bear

Goodbye, Bye said the mama bear

Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear

So ends the story of the three bears!”

N: When Cathy and Mike were very young I would read to them or tell bedtime stories until I would get so sleepy I couldn’t read any more. I would then start to sing a little song that went like this ‘ Once upon a time there were three bears, A Papa Bear, A Mama Bear and a Wee Bear’. They would cry out “No, don’t sing the song”. I never knew if they didn’t like my singing or they didn’t want the stories to end.

M: Do you remember any of the song?

N: Um… no. No more than what I just sang to you.

M: Do you remember where you learned it?

N: I think I had learned it from my mother. She would sing it to me when I was little.

M: It’s funny. I never knew there was a song for Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I really like my grandmother’s response to why my dad and aunt had such a bad reaction to the song. Personally, I think it was because they knew after the song, the stories would end. I think people tell lullabies they heard as children because it reminds them of when they were little, and they want to have that in common with their children. When I asked my dad about it, however, he said he barely remembers the lullaby. It interesting what some people hold very important, and others forget about.

For other versions of this lullaby, visit http://dragon.sleepdeprived.ca/songbook/songs4/S4_36.htm

A Mom’s Lullaby

Nationality: USA
Age: 53
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Amherst, Ohio
Performance Date: April 2, 2015
Primary Language: English

“Lullaby,

Don’t you cry,

Go to sleep my little Meowser,

 

Close your eyes,

And start to yawn,

Sweet dreams until the dawn

 

Lullaby,

Don’t you cry,

Go to sleep my little Matt

 

Lullaby,

Don’t you cry,

Go to sleep my little Meow.”

 

This is a lullaby that my mom used to sing for me when I was a child. It definitely borrows the tune and theme from Brahm’s lullaby, but I couldn’t find that version of the lyrics anywhere. Additionally, my mom inserted my name (Matt) and my nicknames (Meowser and Meow) into the song, something her mother did for her. My mother said that it reminded her of the stressful but adorable task of getting me to bed at night, but she also has a very loving memory of it. For me, the song evokes strong emotion because my mom is the person that I’m closest to in my family, and i connect that song with my mother and with my childhood.

Indonesian Lullaby

Nationality: Indonesian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/05/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Indonesian

This is a lullaby that the informant’s father used to sing to her and her sister.

Translation

“Miel, go to sleep. Miel, go to sleep. If you don’t go to sleep, you’re going to get bit by ants.” The alternate ending means, “you’ll get bit by a fly.”

Informant’s Thoughts

The informant described this as a dark lullaby, and even mentioned that her sister used to hate the song and that it would keep her up. The informant herself said she never had a problem going to sleep, despite the lullaby being dark. Her father most likely learned it from his parents, since it is meant to be a song that parents sing to their children to scare them into sleeping. The informant doesn’t know of any name for the lullaby, but her father would call it “Informant bobo”, meaning “Informant sleep.”

Background & Analysis

The informant’s parents are from Indonesia, however the informant herself was born in the U.S., but is fluent in both Indonesian and English. The informant and I live in the same residence hall, and for this folklore collection, we got pizzas together and just sat down and ate them in my room while talking and sharing stories. I think it is an interesting, if somewhat backwards logic, that parents sing this song to coerce their children into going to sleep, since in American culture, lullabies are generally supposed to be sweet and gentle songs that “lull” a child to sleep. Perhaps the lyrics are supposed to be a sort of joke and meant to be ignored, however it would be difficult not to take the words seriously when living a country (Indonesia) that is home to a host of exotic insect species.