Now this may be a bad choice for a Wednesday morning – not because there’s any concern over the quality of the song but more the form of the song. Here we are midweek, yearning for the weekend and thinking that another coffee is probably required to achieve full wakefulness and what does Americana Uk bring you? A lullaby. A beautiful folk lullaby, with a lovely early-music feel to it, but definitely a soothing and gentle lullaby designed to close those weary eyes….well, maybe just for a few minutes…
Abigail Lapell has recorded a whole album of lullabies, arranged and performed on classical guitar and vocals. Recorded by Michael Timmins at his Toronto studio, the project includes songs in English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Yiddish, German, Japanese, and Welsh and features original guitar and vocal arrangements and, in some cases, new English lyrical adaptations. The album, entitled perhaps predictably ‘Lullabies’. also includes one original song in English, based on a fragment of a half-remembered bedtime song from Abigail Lapell’s mother.
‘Isabeau‘ is a traditional French lullaby – ‘Isabeau s’y promène‘ (‘Isabeau Goes Walking‘) tells the story of a young girl who goes walking in her garden by the water’s edge, where she meets 30 sailors aboard a boat. The youngest of them starts singing a beautiful song, which she wants to learn.
