Slow and Sleep

These lyrics started out with thoughts about motion in Nature, but not animate movement.

Clouds float across the sky, tinged pink by the sunset. Streams burble over rocks as little frogs chirp nearby. Wind rustles through the leaves of mulberry trees. Sand shifts along a dune. Waves lap along a shoreline. Lava flows. Planets orbit.

And all of that motion tends to come to rest (at varying rates), where calming down seemed like a perfect motif for a lullaby. Things move, then they slow down, and when it comes to the child for whom the song is sung, maybe they will settle into sleep (one hopes).

I didn’t torment myself over the rhyming, as it didn’t seem to be critical to the enjoyment of the story.

As I was wandering through the lyricizing, I was approached by a hwim that wanted me to add sounds of a jungle at night, so I did that thing and faded that accompaniment in and out as seemed best to complement the music. For that audio file, I would like to thank Felix Blume for his recording of insects and frogs at the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve; crucially, he made the file available on Freesound under a Creative Commons license.

I did what I could to get a sort of madrigal quality in there with the melody, and I think that a hint is evident. There is a longer instrumental introduction as I happened to find it to be relaxing, and it leads into the singing with just a little bit of white noise.

Lyrics

Swish and swoosh,

hush, and shush,

fall asleep now, Love.

So much moves and moves and moves…

Snowflakes feather fall

to blanket moonlit fields.

Old leaves softly sway

to cover grassy lawns.

So much slows and slows and slows…

Fog banks roundly roll

to fluff up misty vales.

Dew drops slippy slide

to soak in sodden soil.

So much sleeps and sleeps and sleeps…

Petals sweepy swoop

to weave mosaic spreads.

Children drowsy drift

to dream in cozy beds.

So much moves and moves and slows…

…and sleeps.

Swish and swoosh,

hush, and shush,

fall asleep now, Love.