Sweet Children

With increasing frequency, a litany of strange packages began arriving in my mail recently. Inside were, and continue to be, a series of very strange discs, entitled, Rockabye Baby!, that purport to be rock tunes made into lullabies. My first reaction? Smoking crack, as well all well saw in the 90's, can be a terrible, terrible thing.

Coldplay, The Beach Boys. The Eagles (easy to see why that one works), Pink Floyd (which I've nodded off to many times, course that coulda been all the…) all arrived and got a dutiful listen. But then came the terrible twosome of Tool and Green Day. Being childless, though sadly prone to swoops back into teenagery, I realize my opinion is of limited value here. I don't have a little Lars or a little Maynard to test these mostly marimba and keyboard efforts out on. But I do know abject fantasy when I see it and trying to take the rhythms out of rock music so it will lull infants, even ones with long hair and Blood on the Tracks posters up in their room, just ain't gonna work.

Go ahead and tell me I'm all wrong and your kid never slept a wink until you started playing him the lullaby versions of Tool's "Opiate" or Green Day’s "Basket Case."

This cottage industry, thunk up and perpetrated by one Michael Armstrong, a man bent on flooding the little people world with his twinkley creations, is one very strange parallel universe. How he stays awake long enough to record them is a mystery to me but I'm sure the guy is selling them. Upwardly mobile new parent types would think they were a scream. Like the New Yawkers in Baby Boom who just had to have baby applesauce. The only problem is that being bored and being sleepy are often two entirely different states of being and cute as these are, I mean Tool as lullabies, why it's almost standup comedy for toddlers, they do get a bit bland after awhile. Kind of like Raffi on Meth.

Not only that: but c'mon, if a kids gonna rock them let `em turn it up to 11 and blast "Basket Case" the way Billy Jo meant it.

COMMENTS
Ariel Bitran's picture

Yesterday, I saw a baby in a stroller with little ear buds and a pink iPod mini. It was terrifying. Whatever happened to rattlers?

Lizzeee's picture

Eveyone has their opinion...but this from a man who hates covers! SM, Don't dull you're kids minds (or those of your friends') with muzak...give 'em the real thing! Censorship and watered down content should not start in the craddle -- Bach for Babies...how insulting! Give 'em the real masters and watch them make masterpieces of their own.

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