What are the most haunting lullabyes and children's songs?

[BillHadersNewWife]

I find Lavenders Blue and "On the Mountain Stands a Lady" wonderfully creepy.

What about you?

The Little Boy who Santa Clause forgot

My friend kindly introduced me to Tili Tili Bom

It's incredibly creepy.

@Babdoc my mum used to song Morningtown Rose to me and I sing it to my children.

My mum used to sing an old Irish song about a poor orphan boy with a bad leg who ended up dying...must've mentally blocked it out as I used to weep and weep and weep. She had to stop singing as I'd keep asking her if I was true!

DD used to cry at ‘how much is that doggy in the window’. Maybe it was my singing 😂

Baby mine makes me bawl my eyes out. Not so much the lyrics, but the thought of mummy dumbo locked away from her baby.

The doggy on the window gets me!

Mary,Mary quite contrary!

This thread needs to be in classics

The kids found Tili Tili Bom and then googled a translation of it - not my idea of a lullaby to get them to sleep.

My sister and I found an incredibly creepy Victorian carol in a song book and learnt it when we were kids. Our mum used to beg us not to sing it! It was called The Mistletoe Bough and it was about a young man playing Hide and Seek with his fiancée. She hides in a box but no-one finds her and she suffocates, only to be found many years later. It's got a really cheery tune, too. Brrr!

Wouldn't say these were haunting but just remember these songs that were sung to me - when I look back what screwed up weird shit they were!

Rock a Bye Baby on the treetops
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bow breaks the cradle will fall
Down will come baby cradle and all

Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap the baby bunting in.

Khione my auntie had learned that poem as a child, and used to recite it to me and my cousin, we thought it was the saddest thing ever then, and I think we probably still would! That image of the toys still waiting........

My Grandfather’s clock.
Loved it but it’s not exactly cheerful.

The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn
Now is the time for a child to be born
He'll laugh at the moon and he'll cry for the sun
And if it's a boy he'll carry a gun
Sang the crow on the cradle

And if it should be that this baby's a girl
Never you mind if her hair doesn't curl
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
And a bomber above her wherever she goes
Sang the crow on the cradle

Your mother and father will scrimp and will save
To build you a coffin and dig you a grave
So hush a bye little one
Never you weep
For we've got a toy to put you to sleep
Sang the crow on the cradle

Crow on the cradle the black and the white
Somebody's baby is born for a fight
Crow on the cradle the white and the black
Somebody's baby is not coming back
Sang the crow on the cradle

Bring me my gun and I'll shoot that bird dead
That's what your mother and father have said
Crow on the cradle what shall we do
Now there's a thing that I leave up to you
Sang the crow on the cradle
Sang the crow on the cradle

Molly Malone. Used to scare me as a child. Now it's just sad

babdoc we used to sing Morningtown Ride in assembly at primary school. I remember it fondly (my headmistress loved a folk song).

@Babdoc- I’m so sorry for your loss.

My mum used to sing Morningtown Ride to me when I was a child. I sang it to her as she lay dying last year; that and Puff the Magic Dragon.

I love them both because they remind me of my mum singing me to sleep, but they make me so sad too.

We used to sing Streets of London in assembly. I’m sure they chose it just to make us cry.

When I was a toddler I used to break my heart at the end of Andy Panty! The old black and white series from watch with mother has a song about Andy waving goodbye !
I used to be inconsolable each week !

Lula lullay
That one about laying your bones on the alabaster stones - Go To Sleep Little Baby (mamma’s long gone with her red shoes on)
Goodnight children everywhere makes me weep.

Mum never sang - the only song she ever did sing was Sweet Polly Oliver which is just a weird choice. Dad used to sing and hum opera!

Bright Eyes

And my beloved gran used to sing a song that goes
" Little man you' re crying .
I know why you're blue, someone stole your kiddie car away.
Time to go to bed now, ,little man you've had a busy day.
It made me so melancholy. If I heard it now it would break me I think. So many precious memories in a few short lines .

'Puff the magic Dragon'
'Hushabye mountain'

Choke me up every time