Sweet Lullaby - Song Information

Song Information

The song is based around a traditional Baegu lullaby from the Solomon Islands called "Rorogwela", and uses a vocal sample originally recorded by ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp in 1970 and later released by UNESCO as part of their Musical Sources collection. The lyrics refer to a young orphan being comforted by his older brother despite the loss of their parents.

The music video, directed by Tarsem Singh, was also nominated for several awards at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. The video consists of a little girl riding a tricycle in front of iconic scenes from around the globe.

In 2005, the song gained renewed exposure when it was featured in Matt Harding's Where the Hell is Matt? viral video. The video featured the Nature's Dancing 7" Mix of the song. In 2008, Harding traveled to the Solomons island of Malaita to try to find Afunakwa, the woman who is thought to be the performer of "Rorogwela" on Zemp's recording. According to Harding's follow-up video Where the Hell is Afunakwa?, Afunakwa had died in 1998.

The song and music video were used at some point in the mid-1990s to advertise the world-conscious Australian television station SBS. The song inspired a short film depicting a little girl travelling around the world on her tricycle while the lullaby played in the background, eventually returning home to hear the lullaby while in her mother's arms. The short film was accompanied by the subtext "The world is an amazing place".

The track and its creators have come under criticism for their unauthorized appropriation of musical recordings.

The song was sampled by Moby in his track Flying Foxes from Play: The B Sides.

The saxophonist Jan Garbarek recorded his own instrumental arrangement of the song on his album "Visible World" (1995), with the title "Pygmy Lullaby". In the CD cover it is erroneously stated that the melody is African.

The Italian dj Mauro Picotto sampled the song on his hit Komodo in 2000.