when the song is about putting your baby in a tree and letting the wind crash the cradle to the ground?
2007-02-16 09:29:43 · 19 answers · asked by RIVER 6 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Polls & Surveys
To gently remind our childred that if they do not go to sleep, we are going to make them sleep...
2007-02-16 09:35:14 · answer #1 · answered by Fluffy Rover 5 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Rock-a-bye Baby is an American nursery rhyme, whose melody is a variant of the English satirical ballad Lilliburlero.
Originally titled "Hushabye Baby", this nursery rhyme was said to be the first poem written on American soil.
Although there is no evidence when the song was written, it may date from the 1600s.
It is rumoured that it was written by a young pilgrim who sailed to America on the Mayflower.
He was said to have observed the way Native American women rocked their babies in birch bark cradles, which were suspended from the high branches of trees, allowing the wind to rock the baby to sleep.
Another source reports that Effie Crockett, a relative of Davy Crockett, wrote the lyrics in 1872 while babysitting a restless child.
In Derbyshire, England, local legend has it that the song relates to a local character in the late 1700s, Betty Kenny (Kate Kenyon), who lived with her charcoal-burner husband Luke and their eight children in a huge yew tree in Shining Cliff Woods in the Derwent Valley, where a hollowed-out bough served as a cradle.
The lyrics are:
Rock a bye baby on the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Only the words in the first four lines are supposed to be from the "Pilgrim boy" in America. Lines 5-12 are a later invention.
Hmm... we are just a disturbing generation that has spewed from a couple before us. Maybe our great grandparents were trying to put the fear in us by claiming that we should not sleep in trees??
Its not exactly relaxing bedtime lyric....but its the soothing sound and voice that gets the child asleep (supposedly).
Sleep well tonight and no falling out of the tree.
2007-02-16 09:37:23 · answer #2 · answered by _ 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The words contradict the fact that it a traditional song that just comes natural to sing.
It seems so soothing, I think it the rhythm and not the words.
Come to think of it it is probably because our mothers sang it to us and is imprinted in our memory.
2007-02-16 09:38:09 · answer #3 · answered by Cinna 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
its such a soothing song and the baby doesnt know wut the hell is goin on so why not and plus its a warning to all moms not to put their kids in trees cuz the wind might just knock them and the cradle out
2007-02-16 09:33:32 · answer #4 · answered by makedarad22 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think the song has something to do with Native Americans?
2007-02-16 09:32:49 · answer #5 · answered by Morgan<3 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I agree. I sang this to my baby but I just couldn't sing it again...so cruel....just couldn't look my son in the eyes when singing it...lol ;-P
2007-02-16 09:45:04 · answer #6 · answered by DonPiano 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I wouldn't and haven't sang that whack azz song even if you paid me.
I played Mozart for kids when they were babies and it did the trick.
2007-02-16 09:35:05 · answer #7 · answered by BionicNahlege 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ring around the rosie is morbid too
2007-02-16 09:35:12 · answer #8 · answered by NOT USING Y!A ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!! 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good question, why do we sing any of those crazy old nursery rimes.. It's all about death and misery..
2007-02-16 09:32:28 · answer #9 · answered by ? 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
so the baby stops crying!
2007-02-16 09:48:10 · answer #10 · answered by Stuntman Mike 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋