Rock and Roll Lullaby (song)

"Rock and Roll Lullaby" is a song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil that was a 1972 hit single performed by B. J. Thomas.

Content

The song is sung in a first-person narrative of an adolescent or adult raised by single teenage mother since birth during the early years of rock-and-roll. Despite the bleakness of their situation, whenever the child cries, the mother sings him to sleep with a 'sha-na-na-na-na-na-na, it'll be all right...sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, just hold on tight,' referring to the non-descript lyrics often found in music during rock-n-roll's formative years.

In the second verse, the narrator calls attention that despite hardships, they'd 'dream of better moments when Mama sang her song', and that while it didn't make sense to try to recall the words, the loving meaning beneath them was all that mattered.

Production

The song was produced by Steve Tyrell. The single's backup vocals were performed by The Blossoms and Dave Somerville with Duane Eddy playing lead guitar and Al Gorgoni playing rhythm guitar. "Rock and Roll Lullaby" reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Thomas's third number one on the Easy Listening chart, where it spent one week in March 1972.^[1]

The song was a big hit in Brazil, because of its appearance as love theme in the soap opera Selva de Pedra.

See also

• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1972 (U.S.)

References