Song 367: This week on the playlist you can hear The Cruel Lullaby by Carol Denney, who also wrote the song. As usual, seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post which featured Bob Nichols comes one by Carol. Bob, Carol and I were all members of a Berkeley songwriting circle back in the 1980s, but sadly, Bob died in November of 2005. Checking out Carol's website today, I noticed that she has a short story inspired by Bob's generosity to the Berkeley homeless, which you can find here. This cut is the title track from Carol's second CD, which she released in 2002, and a few years ago she performed it live at Viracocha in San Francisco, in front of a video camera. Her performance begins with an entertaining explanation of the song's inspiration, which evidently occurred when she found herself at a Berkeley potluck seated between 2 Buddhists who discussed their views on life after death. Following that experience, Carol crafted a lullaby meant to convey to a young child the cruel reality of life and death that she sees, cutting through the sort of comforting fantasies that she heard at the potluck, and giving a youngster the real story, which is one a child might not want to hear. The audience at Viracocha most certainly did enjoy hearing this lullaby, though, and their laughter throughout the performance makes that quite clear.
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