Have you ever sat down and really listened through the lyrics of the many songs we often sing to little children? Just like the original, pre-Disney fairytales are a lot darker than the sanitized modern renditions, old lullabies, and children’s stories tend to often seem a bit morbid.
Traditional children’s songs and lullabies are downright scary when you think about the lyrics
Image credits:LightFieldStudios / envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits:Timur Weber / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image source:Carasouls
Babies have more musical preferences than one might think
There is, in fact, a sort of near-universal logic to lullabies. Because they are intended to put children to sleep, they have very exaggerated melodies. While this may, perhaps, sound counterproductive, remember that literal infants tend to not have the most developed ear for music, so “bigger” sounds are the best way to get across the highs and lows of a song.
Indeed, despite the inability to speak, scientists have found that babies do seem to have strong opinions about the sort of music that gets sung to them. This last verb is important, as another study found that infants, for whatever reason, do not really like the sound of instrumentals andgreatly prefer just vocals.
There are other examples of cultures developing somewhat “scary” lullabies
Similarly, Colombia has lullabies with the same concept. However, it is worth noting that the vast majority of lullabies for babies are entirely benign and are mostly just about falling asleep, set to a melody. We perhaps tend to remember the more “horrifying” ones because of the mental whiplash. Hearing some morbid lyrics set to a very childish tune is, after all, pretty unnerving.
In general, lullabies are helpful in easing children’s stress
OP gave important additional context
Many thought he was NTA as lullabies can get pretty dark
Others shared the songs they used
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