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Speaker 1: US Studios forty seven new parents. Clara had been a

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musician for twenty years before she came up with the idea.

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She had played in coffee shops and small concert halls,

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written songs for other people, recorded three albums of her

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own that had sold modestly, and gathered a small but

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devoted following. She was forty two now, and the idea

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arrived one morning in late autumn, while she was making

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tea in her kitchen and watching the steam rise from

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the kettle and curl into shapes in the cold air.

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She was going to write a lullaby for every child

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born in her town that year. Not the same lullaby

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written once and re used, a different one for each child,

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each one written specifically for that particular baby and that

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particular family. It was an ambitious project, perhaps too ambitious,

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but Clara had always been the kind of person who

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said yes to things before she had time to talk

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herself out of them. She began by going to the

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local hospital and asking the nurses in the maternity ward

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how many babies had been born in the town so

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far that year. The number was forty seven. Forty seven lullabies.

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She wrote the names down on a small piece of

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paper and folded it into her pocket and walked home

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through the cold streets, feeling both excited and a little overwhelmed.

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The first family she visited was the Andersons, who lived

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in a small house at the edge of town near

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the river. Their daughter, named June, was three weeks old.

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Clara sat in their living room with her guitar and

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asked them questions. What were their hopes for June. What

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songs did June's mother remember from her own childhood. What

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was the weather like the night June was born? What

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did June's father want for her when she grew up.

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The answers were simple and sincere, and full of the

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particular love that new parents have for children who are

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still mostly a set of possibilities rather than a set

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of facts. Clara listened and took notes in a small notebook,

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and then sat with her guitar and played a few

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chords and sang a melody that came to her as

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she listened. It was a simple melody, gentle and lilting,

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with a chorus that repeated the baby's name, June, June,

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Little June, Sleep now in your dreaming. The parents cried

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a little Clara cried a little too. They recorded the

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song on Clara's phone, and Clara promised to send them

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a finished version within the week. Then she thanked them

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and walked back through the cold streets to her apartment,

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where she spent the rest of the afternoon working out

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the chords and refining the melody until it was exactly right.

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The second family was the Patels, who had just had

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twin boys named Rohan and Arjune. They were still in

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the hospital, so Clara visited them there, sitting in the

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plastic chair beside the mother's bed while the babies slept

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in their small, clear bassinets. The parents had come to

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this country only two years before, and the father told

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Clara's stories about his own mother back in India, who

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had sung him to sleep every night until he was

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twelve years old. He remembered her voice, but not the words,

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only the warmth of it, the way it filled the

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room and made the world feel safe. Clara wrote two

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lullabies for the twins, one in English and one that

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used a few words of Hindi that the father taught her.

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They were simple songs, full of gentleness, and the mother

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cried when she heard them. They recorded the songs on

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Clara's phone, and Clara went home and spent the rest

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of the day putting the final touches on the recordings,

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mixing them with very soft ambient sounds so they would

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be gentle enough to play next to sleeping babies. The

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project took Clara eight months to complete. She visited forty

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seven families. She wrote forty seven different lullabies, each one

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tailored to that particular child and that particular family. She

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recorded each one in her small home studio, mixing it

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with sound that seemed appropriate. The sound of rain for

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babies born on rainy nights, the sound of crickets for

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some more babies, the sound of wind chimes for babies

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whose parents loved the garden. Each recording was about three

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minutes long, just long enough to settle a baby into sleep.

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She did not charge anything for the songs. She gave

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them away as gifts, sending the recordings to the families

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along with a handwritten note that thanked them for letting

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her into their lives for an afternoon. Some families wrote

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back to thank her. Some sent photos of their babies

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sleeping peacefully with headphones on. Some sent updates months later,

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telling her that the lullabies had become part of the

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bedtime routine, played every night for the baby and sometimes

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for the parents too. By the end of the year,

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Clara had recorded forty seven lullaby for forty seven children.

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She put them all on a small website she had built,

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organized by the baby's first name, so any parent could

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find their child's song and play it whenever they wanted.

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The website had no ads, and no payments, and no tracking.

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It was just forty seven songs quietly waiting in the

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digital dark for someone to come and listen. On the

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last day of the year, Clara sat in her apartment

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with a cup of tea and played through all forty

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seven lullabies in order, listening to the melodies she had

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written for children she had met only briefly, but had

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come to know in some quiet way through their songs.

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The music filled her apartment, layer upon layer, melody after melody,

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each one different and each one exactly right for the

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child had been written for. When the last lullaby ended,

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she sat in the quiet for a long time, feeling

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the particular fullness that comes from having done something that

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mattered in a small way. She was not famous. The

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project had not made her rich. But forty seven children

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somewhere in her town were falling asleep to songs that

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had been written specifically for them, and that was enough.

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That was more than enough. The next year, she would

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do it again. She had already spoken to the hospital

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and they had agreed to send her a list of

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the new babies born in the town. She would write

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forty or fifty new lullabies, and she would give them

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away as gifts, and she would sit again at the

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end of the year listening to all of them played

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together in her small apartment. It was not a project

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that would change the world. It was not the kind

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of thing that made headlines won awards. But it was

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a quiet and good thing, and it filled her days

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with meaning. And somewhere in the town, on any given night,

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a small child was drifting off to sleep listening to

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a melody that someone had written just for them. And

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that was the kind of beauty that Clara believed the

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world could always use more of.