Listen to the Project Calm issue 14 playlist

For our issue dedicated to lullabies we had to fill it with soothing songs, of course. So we kick off with Vault’s jingly, music box-inspired Cry No More, and follow with Anna of the North’s Sway. Cash + David’s gorgeous Bones makes the cut simply for a lyric every parent can relate to: “I’m just tired to my bones”.

Modern day nursery rhymes from our feature on page 54 appear too, with a couple of stand-out cover versions from Branches and Jeff Buckley.

Elsewhere we celebrate pebbles, staycations, flowers and home. It’s a good one to lull you to sleep, whatever your age.

Listen to the issue 14 playlist

1. Cry No More – Vaults
2. Pebbles – She Drew the Gun
3. Sway – Anna of the North
4. StayCation – BassFiend
5. Les Fleur – 4hero
6. Three Little Birds – Branches
7. Your Song – Elton John
8. Bones – Cash+David
9. Stone Thrown – Turin Brakes
10. Wallflowers – The Chain Gang of 1974
11. Blackbird – The Beatles
12. Hometown Glory – Adele
13. Tender – Blur
14. Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
15. Bloom – Lights & Motion

The stories behind the music

Pebbles – She Drew the Gun

“I’ve always felt drawn to music that says something,” says Louisa Roach, aka She Drew The Gun. The Merseyside singer songwriter won Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent contest in 2016. With a degree in psychology, her tracks go deeper into the human psyche than your typical pop song. In this song, “pebbles on my window pane” tell a story of an unbalanced relationship.

Your Song – Elton John

Your Song was one of the first collaborations between Elton John and his longterm lyricist, Bernie Taupin, who was only 17 at the time he wrote: “I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words / How wonderful life is, while you’re in the world.” Surprisingly it only reached number seven in the UK singles chart, but it’s since been celebrated as one of Elton’s finest songs.

Stone Thrown – Turin Brakes

Originally recorded as a B-side to the Mind Over Money single from their first album, Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian of Turin Brakes recorded this version for their second offering, Ether Song. “It’s about being dumped, basically, as about 50 per cent of our songs seem to be,” says Olly, who describes this version as a bit “Neil Young, with a groove you can nod to.”