Lullaby (by Donna D. and Stoman)

[stoman]

Donna wrote the lyric and also most the of the melody for this lullaby. She bought herself a keyboard, practiced a bit and then sent me an e-mail with the names of the notes she had played along with the lyric. I created a song draft based on that melody guide, and Billy Playle was so kind to help us by replacing the original synthetic guitar picking with his real guitar (I always wonder how he manages to stay so close to the original versions). Billy also sang a demo version of the song. At least it was meant as a demo as we were actually looking for female vocals - but in the end we decided to stick with Billy's version because (1) we think it sounds great and (2) we had no luck recruiting a female singer anyway.

The vocal track had a lot of clicks and other problems. This is the latest mix where I used Audacity to manually fix as many problems as possible. I could not get rid of all the clicks, but the remaining ones should be hardly noticeable.

The following are Donna's own words:

The lyric idea arose when I was thinking about Western Australia, where I once lived. I learned a few things about the Aboriginal culture – and its methodical destruction – while I was there. The irony in the lullaby is intentional. Unfortunately I wasn't able to determine to which specific Aboriginal language these words belong.

    'biralee' = 'children
    'shiralee' = 'burden'
    'alunga' = 'sun'
    'arapala' = 'full moon'

Billy Playle - Lullaby (Stranger Won't Touch You)

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Stranger Won't Touch You
(© 2008-2010 Donna Devine)

On skins of soft possum
Under ironbark trees
When allunga the sun
Sings her fire to sleep

    Sweet birralee
    No shiralee
    You're safe in my arms
    Stranger won't touch you
    Can do you no harm

Tonight while the full moon
Arapala still shines
And the night hunters track
Along distant songlines

    Sweet birralee
    No shiralee
    You're safe in my arms
    Stranger won't touch you
    Can do you no harm

So fall into dreaming
To the time before time
When Ancestors woke
And creation began

    Sweet birralee
    No shiralee
    You're safe in my arms
    Stranger won't touch you
    Can do you no harm

Vocals & Guitar: Billy Playle
Music: Donna Devine & Steffen Offermann
Arranged & mixed by Steffen Offermann

Regards,
  Steffen

[Geir]

Another lovely lullaby !!!

Someone should tell Kumale !!

Maybe we should have a lullaby fest

[Kenneth]

Pretty song on all counts, writing/ music vocals, wonderful.

[Bluesberry]

Holy moley that beautiful sounding.  great job the three of you.

[Facemask93]

This is really nice , great all round production , beautifull lyrics and wonderfull vox

Rob

[launched]

That was a beautiful song - Very nice!

Mark

[stoman]

Glad you liked this, guys! I want to point out again that most of the melody for this song was composed by Donna herself. Her first composition, IIRC. IMO a very nice debut.

Regards,
  Steffen

[Geir]

. IMO a very nice debut.

indeed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vanncad]

Wow - really nice guys. You should be doing wedding songs!

This is a beauty!

[Kenneth]

back for another listen of this beautiful song and to put it in my folder.