All The World Is Sleeping (Suo Gân, Welsh Lullaby)

History & Origin

All the World Is Sleeping is a lullaby that does what the best sleep songs always do — it takes a child's world and softens it, quiets it, tells them that everything and everyone has set the day aside and gone to rest.

Lullabies that describe a sleeping world are among the oldest and most universal forms of children's song. The idea that the birds are asleep, the flowers have closed, the moon has come out to keep watch — these images appear in cradle songs from cultures across the globe. By placing the child within a world that is itself settling down for the night, such songs remove the isolation of bedtime and replace it with belonging.

This song, part of the Nursery Rhymes Collections, is performed with the quiet care that characterises the collection's lullaby recordings — softly instrumented, gently sung, with an unhurried pace that allows a child's breathing to slow in time with the melody.