The lullabies I grew up with I've heard again, and again, and again. Especially with a much younger sibling, I got to hear them ad nauseum.
Little did I now that my wife was thinking the same thing, but in reverse.
She was of course thinking how great it is going to be to hear the American Lullabies with her kids. For her, they are new songs as well, and a first time experience. She's of course tired of the same old Japanese kid's songs over and over again.
It's fun to explain the meanings behind some of the songs, like "Ring Around the Rosie" being related to the plague. Some of the other songs are just plain mean, like the Farmer cutting off the tails of blind mice, or a servant's nose being pecked off by the crows. Some are about the futility of life, such as "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". No matter how many times he climb's that water spout, he's just going to get washed down by the rain. He can't do anything until the sun comes out. Then, like the masochist he is, he tries it again.
Even better is "Rock a Bye Baby". That poor kid thinking it's being gently rocked to sleep, when all of a sudden the tree branch breaks, and well, you know what happens next. SPLAT. Recently I have heard a different version, that ends "...and up will go baby, into the sky". I'm not sure if that alludes to the kid becoming an angel, though, because they died.
English children's stories and songs can be somewhat frightening and cruel.
I have been able to hear quite a few of the Japanese lullabies. Admittedly though, I don't exactly know what is being said in them yet. They seem to be more cutsey and fun. Just the change of pace alone is great. I am most familiar with the one about the kid's toys coming to life as the kid's sleep (omocha no cha cha cha; Inspiration for Toy Story?), and a fun one where you use the last part of the previous animal's word to begin the next animal's word.
It's like this:
kobuta -> tanuki -> kitsune -> neko
pig -> Raccoon -> fox -> cat
Or just watch this instead:
Isn't that cute?
It's like a game called Shiritori in Japanese. The game is the same as one I remember playing as a kid; You say a word, and the next person has to say a word that begins with the last letter of the word that you just said.
Anyway, It's fun to hear something new and different, plus I get to hear what my wife listened to when she was growing up. We have a few CD's of kid's music in Japanese, as well as in English. I ripped them all to MP3 so we could put it all on one disc, and play it in the car.
Now our oldest cries out whenever we go driving, "I want B-I-N-G-O, Mommy!" or any of the other songs from the English selections.
"What about the Japanese songs?" I ask.
"Farmer in the Dell!!" is the response from the back seat. And sometimes the front seat as well!
"OK, OK" So I play the selected song, but put the album on random. I gotta remember to remake the CD next time without individual album folders, and just throw all the music onto the disc. Even on Random, the same songs again and again get old. We don't drive that far!
When it's just me with the kids at home, I get to pick the music. That's when I put on the Japanese tunes and let the kids dance and run around. Or rather crawl, in the little ones case. She claps along to the tunes, and laughs at the antics of her older sister.
Our kid's know songs in both languages, and it's funny to hear our oldest switch back and forth between languages in the ones that are shared between them. So far, I've only heard "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Mary Had A Little Lamb" in Japanese, I don't know yet if there are others.
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