Endless Thread - The Lullaby

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Our intrepid sound designer, Matt Reed — musician/composer extraordinaire —recently became a dad. He picked up a Glo Worm for his baby son, Sam. It's a plush musical baby toy made by Hasbro that's been around for decades. It plays standard, well-known lullabies like "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Frère Jacques," etc. "Straight hits," as host Ben Brock Johnson says in this episode. "Straight hits." But there's one melody on the toy that was a complete unknown to Matt. It's in a minor key, it's slow. Is it creepy? "Yeah, it's definitely got that vibe," Matt says. "Funeral zone." So, he brought this idea to Endless Thread's pitch meetings where we throw around episode ideas. "I turn to the internet like most weirdos do, I guess, when they're obsessing over their child's toy to figure out what song it is," Matt says. "And there's other people on the Internet who are also... curious? Confused?" There are two Reddit posts about this creepy music, a YouTube video, several unhelpful emails from Hasbro to concerned parents, and numerous guesses and theories. "We were concerned by the addition of an unlisted song too," writes YouTuber deefrontier5798. "It's creepy and sad, and the fact that the creators withheld information puts up a red flag." In this episode, we ask Hasbro directly and try alternate routes. Sometimes Endless Thread doesn't get to the complete bottom of Internet mysteries. But this isn't one of those times. We hope you like nursery rhymes. :)

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Ben, Brock Johnson. Emery, Emery, Emery, Emery, Emery, Emery Severson. Just trying out something a little new. It's out of my range. That's okay. Any key that you picked would be out of mine. So at a certain point, one of us just has to try for that key.

Are you ready to get wormy again? We've been wormy a couple times in the past few months. We're getting wormy, but we're getting musically wormy this time, which means nothing to anyone currently. But I'll start by saying that one of our sound designers, Matt Reed, he's a musician, like many sound designers and audio people, you might be surprised to find. And he also recently became a dad.

So now he's a dad musician, which is the best kind. The best kind. And fatherhood is pretty much what led Matt to a particular unsolved Internet mystery that he recently told us about on a video call. Yeah. So it definitely looks sort of like a telitubby. It's got like a hoodie on with ears. And a very kind of creepy face. Like a human-looking face almost.

Yeah. If you haven't guessed by now, we are not describing Matt's baby son, Sam, but rather a toy that belongs to his baby son. And it's a glowworm from the Hasbro Toy Company. When you turn it on, the face lights up if you can see that. Yes, I can. It's like reddish. Yeah, it's pretty freaky, actually. This toy came out in the 1970s. Which is part of why it's freaky.

Some freaky toys of the 70s. But maybe you saw commercials for it in the 80s. Play our song, musical glowworm. I sing your lullaby. I make your days bright. I bring you sweet dreams. I help you sleep tight. We're all your good night friends.

And for what it's worth, like when I was a kid, this was like, this was huge. Like these were everywhere. You could get glowworm child-sized glowworm sleeping bags so that like you could become a glow worm by getting into your own glowworm sleeping bag. That's pretty sick. Yeah, sure. My son is certainly very captivated by its light up face and the music that it plays, which I guess brings me to the sort of mystery here. There are lullabies on this glow worm that are easily recognizable.

Can you walk us through the worm playlist? So there's Chopin. There's Frerejaca. Hush little baby. Twinkle, twinkle. Kind of the classic kid stuff. Hockabelle's Canon. Brahms Lullaby.

Straight hits. Straight hits. Also, hideant. surprise symphony. And then? And then there's one other song. And it's

a total mystery to me what it is. Happy part. It's getting a little weird. It didn't last long. Yeah, it's like, it's kind of creepy, huh? It's like, I mean,

it jumped out to me. This worm is like, it was a long, dark winter, children. Yeah, it's definitely got that vibe. like funeral funeral zone the music is a bit of an earworm

oh nice one glowworm earworm nice and so Matt who is a composer and is hypnotized by this melody sort of exercised his fascination by arranging his own version I turn to the internet like most weirdos do I guess when they're obsessing over their child's toy to figure out what song it is.

And there's other people on the internet who are also curious, confused. So today, we're going down the wormhole. That glow wormhole. What is this music? Who composed it? Our producer Quincy Walters did some digging. Into the wormhole. And he's got a story to tell.

That's right, Ben and Amory. I went on an adventure to. to see how deep we can go into this unsolved internet mystery. You're probably wondering, does he have what it takes? Can he get to the bottom of this before the baby wakes? I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Severs. And I'm Quincy Walters, and you're listening to Endless Threat.

We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR Wormhole. Where our motto is glow big or glow home, baby. Today's episode, The lullaby. Lullaby. Lullaby. So we started off with a few theories of what this music could be, right, Amory? Yeah, I thought it sounded immediately like box minuet in G, but in a minor key.

But that wasn't it? No, not one bit. We went to YouTube and some Reddit threads where people were throwing around guesses and banging their heads. Box prelude in D minor? Sounds like that Luigi's Mansion game. This sounds like music from the dark Roblox game. People thought of many things like Adagio for Strings. What about Shazam?

When you Shazam it, you could get this. This. Or this. But most commonly, this. Sorry, I didn't quite get that. One Redditor says it sounds like it comes from Schindler's. list. But one thing's for certain, the music makes people, including myself, feel uneasy. Here are some online comments if no one believes me. This creepy-ass song is taunting me through the baby monitor. I'm pretty sure

this song gets played on American Horror Story Season 3 by the creepy butler, but this is my three-year-old's favorite song. This reminds me of an old black and white film with an old grandmother singing. Go to sleep. A Redditor named Shrodinger's Minu messaged Hasbro. Minu is French for Kat and it refers to an impossible physics equation. This collapsing to one reality problem is one of the biggest unanswered questions in quantum physics. So for Kitty's sake, can I has answer, please? Trotinger emailed Hasbro in December of 2021.

They'd dreamed to tell Reddit of the quandary they'd unspun. They'd soon get an email from a rep named Roschonda, who was cryptic in brief in how she'd respond. It's a random made-up lullaby, I'd say. Kind regards. Have a good day. Shrodinger says TBH cop-out sounds like they don't want to admit it's possessed. We agree, and this is a mystery with which we are obsessed. Well, it seems like we have to, we've got to follow up with Hasbro.

They have some answers. Goes all the way to the top. I reached out to Hasbro's public relations firm. They said this question is neat. We too are eager to learn. I hope they get back to me in a matter of days. I'm sure they have their magical Hasbro ways. So while we awaited the toy wizard's conclusion,

we phoned up someone else who might clear the confusion. I'm an independent toy consultant known as the toy guy. I've been in the toy industry for almost 40 years. His real name is Chris Byrne, but he goes by Chris, the toy guy. I'm only Christopher if you're mad at me or you're my mom. We ain't mad at you, Chris. He works with toys doing that and this. I've had all kinds of jobs from naming toys when I was right out of college to

introducing Hello Kitty to the United States, to launching the game Pictionary, to all kinds of different fun things. I've been slimed live on TV. He's a frequent guest on Kelly Ripper and Ryan Seacrest's daytime show. He likes to bring odd toys, and the hosts already know. So this is called Sticky Licketts, and these are actually stickers that you put on food. That's so funny because that's what we call you behind your back, Sticky Lickett. So I feel like his insight could be our ticket.

This stanza is just an excuse to say Sticky Licketts. What did you think when you first saw our question? I thought, well, here we go again. It made me think of shout Elmo, right, from the late 80s, early 90s. Back then, there was a toy that said, be like Elmo and shout. But people heard something less wholesome. Can you figure it out? A lot of people were hearing beat up Elmo.

No. No, don't beat up Elmo. Sometimes you want to, though. Let's be honest. No. People tend to project onto toys their own issues, unresolved. Strangely enough, I happened to find a video of the red monster being blown up online. Anyway, back to the glowworm lullaby.

Since we haven't heard back from the toy's corporate creators, the toy guy said he'll reach out to some friends at Hasbro. He'll give us an answer by the end of this show. And also, Amory may have someone she may know who knows someone who may know. Can you tell us? Oh, illustrious co-host about your Facebook post? I wrote something along the lines of, This might be weird. This might be random. It's for work. It's not for fandom. I'm wondering if there's a person anyone knows who works or has worked at a place called Hasbro.

Oh. Will that lead to Ansela? It's anyone's guess. But let's make like a baby and have a quick rest. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. Neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing.

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Reach new audiences. whatever your goal we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Wake up sleepy heads, all ears at attention. We have to uncover this lullaby's intention. Is it incepting my baby with dark magic? A lullaby that's purposefully creepy? Naur, Chris the toy guy says you're thinking too deeply.

Honestly, I think somebody along the line thought, this is just for a baby. They don't have that sophisticated hearing that an adult does. So you have to remember that as well. So they probably are not hearing it exactly the same way that we are as adults. And science shows that adults do hear music in a different way than BBs. What lulls them to sleep may give us the hebi-gibis. Except if you think about lullabies, they're often in minor keys. They're often slower.

That's also true about creepy music, though. This is Douglas Gentile. Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, and I study media's influences on children and adolescents. In our work with infants and sad music, which tends to also be more minor key and slower, they didn't get sad, really, or scared. they just got restless or they went to sleep.

You see, the minds of babies have not yet been acculturated. The process of assigning nuanced emotions to music has not yet been cultivated. So I'm not sure they would experience it the same way that an adult does. Before all this baby research gets ho-hum, I play our lullaby to Doug and his colleague Ross Flum. I guess what are your thoughts? on that it's it's a got a tempo of about the same as an infant heartbeat didn't maybe even a little slower so it seems a lullaby-ish to me rather than creepy

although I know some people think that's creepy yeah it is it isn't a minor but I'd be curious to see how an infant reacted with that kind of music wouldn't be my first choice. This is the part where I look at the camera and raise an eyebrow and say, I'm curious to see how an infant would react to this music too. It's bedtime at awesome sound engineer Matt Reed's place and the glowworm's random lullaby turns a baby's crying to a smiling face. Quincy, this is great, but you know one thing I hate, not knowing whose work we've all come to appreciate. Q, what happened next? Can you A few weeks ago, I called a PR firm that represents Hasbro. It had been five months since we last

spoke. Dearest Quincy, we're sorry to say. We're no longer associated with Hasbro that way. We'll pass along your question to the right person to see what could that creepy glowworm music be. And did they do that? Did they pass it to someone who got back to you? In rhyme, no, yes? Yeah. Almost immediately like that. Ten minutes later, Hasbro H.Q. sent a response. And they basically said, Quincy, let's make something very clear. We found out nothing and stopped looking by the new year. Come on, Hasbro. Let's be very clear. We know nothing.

Oh, gee, oh shucks, oh fiddlesticks, I say. Can there be any other way? No, Quincy, this will not be a mystery you slay. We're telling you scram. Life is mostly dismay. Oh, don't tell Sam the baby that. Yeah, don't tell Sam that. He's got his whole life ahead of him. He's not been acculturated to that yet.

It's going to be fine, Sam. It'll be okay, Sam. To Hasbro employees take any vows of secrecy? I mean, is it a secretive company and is it a secretive industry? It is the most secretive industry. Again, Chris the toy guy. I reached out to my friends at Hasbro, who by the way didn't respond to see, you know, what did they think? What kind of friends are those? Well, you know, I think they're PR

friends who are saying, you know, this is one we don't want to handle and you got to respect them for that. This is this is what we're just going to let play out, you know, on podcasts and in rumors and whatever. We're not going to jump into this one. Chris's Hasbro friends ghosted him, which actually isn't rare. If they were to talk to us, it'd have to be under a nom de guerre. Is it often that the toy company might want people to sort of keep guessing?

What is the benefit of that? Well, how many times in the last 20 years has people been talking about glowworm? I mean, let's get real, right? I mean, it's like we're suddenly, here we are talking about glowworm. Chris says, you should reach out to a guy, get this twist, also named Chris,

at the Toy Hall of Fame. He knows a lot about toys, and hey, we have the same name. So then I rang the Toy Hall of Fame. Hello, is this the Toy Hall of Fame? They have Rubik's cubes, Barbie, Slinkies, many gizmos and games. They looked into it, and their experts didn't have any luck. They said we can talk about other toys, maybe a rubber duck. Could it be this is where our internet mystery ends?

No, wait, I heard from one of my Facebook friends. He said, I know something. someone, and you need not go far. Talk to Leah Davis, who works at WBUR. No way, Leah, you used to work with Hasbro? I did. Not on glowworm, but I think I might know the person who knows the person who knows, the one that composed. The anticipation grows. So Leah's former colleague went down the wormhole and came up with an answer, really twofold. Was it Randy Laskowski, a jingle, writer, I think? Or was it a firm called Creativity, Inc? Oh, man, she's getting way too rhyming. That's really good. I looked up Randy, shot him a note. He responded so quickly, and here's what he wrote.

A glowworm composer? Indeed, I am, but not of the one that soothes baby Sam. Oh, man. Yeah. But I wasn't quite at the end of my rope. Creativity Inc. would be our last hope. I left them a message, expectations were low. But within mere minutes, my phone was aglow with a text from Mr. Creativity, Inc. himself, who is not the composer, but knows him quite well. He said he's not in today, but give him a call. He'll explain random lullaby once and for all. So, Baxter, you're the guy. You're the guy who wrote this music.

Yeah, I am. Baxter Robertson's the name. He's in his early 70s. He's been a musician in the Bay Area for a long time. And in the late 90s, a friend of his, Charles Albert, the CEO of Creativity Inc. And the guy who texted me back right away about random lullaby, he asked Baxter. Could I do arrangements that would go into toys? And that's been 25 years.

But in all those 25 years, never has anyone wanted to talk to Baxter about a particular song in one of the many, many toys he's worked on. I've done a lot of Elmo's, a lot of other Sesame Street stuff, but I've also done a lot of Barbie products. I've done all the Furbies, too. Wow. And shoot, it just goes on and on. So if we hadn't reached out to you about random lullaby, you probably never would have thought about it ever again?

I haven't thought about it since I wrote it. But he knows he wrote it because it contains some. classic Baxter compositional components. He walked over to the keyboard he had in the room with him to retrace the steps of random lullaby for us. The reason I know that I wrote it is because a lot of times I'll use the rule of a descending bass line, which is just one of the oldest sort of techniques,

and then, you know, and so forth and so on. So that's how it would have begun, as like a simple little piano piece. And how long did it take you to compose it? I'd say about 20 minutes. Baxter also led us in on the parameters he gets from Hasbro for an assignment like this. So they would say, you know, we're doing another glowworm and we need X amount of songs. They are this length because of the constraints of the chip and the memory.

They, you know, have X amount of memory so that the lullabies, in this case, would have to take up X amount of time and no longer. The amount of memory on the chip that goes into the glowworm is also responsible for the audio quality. Baxter sent random lullaby off to Hasbro sounding like this.

And it came out of the glowworm sounding like this. With a little, that's an extended phrase at the end, that definitely means that I wrote it. I was being clever by putting that little extended phrase at the end.

to make it so that it was long enough. So where did this eerie lullaby come from and what does Baxter make of people calling it such? I would say to those specific people that think it's weird, no, it's not. You're wrong. And it's just a nice little piece that went in the toy. Baxter is kidding here, but only sort of. He acknowledges that in Western cultures, we tend to hear songs in minor keys a certain way. Perhaps more haunting, perhaps sad, perhaps negative. But in other cultures, minor keys are perceived as happy.

That would certainly be the case with all Balkan music, all Persian music, and most Asian music, too, which uses minor pentatonic. So actually, we're in the minority when it comes to minor keys. By writing some of the very first music that some children will hear, Baxter knows he's a curator and a tastemaker for his young, impressionable, audience. And he takes that seriously. He tries to expose kids to all kinds of music while giving his toy clients the musical variety they want in their toys. Take the toy saxophone Baxter worked on for Sesame Street. I took Hey Diddle Diddle, which is in a major key, and I did a Latin version of it in a minor key for the saxophone, and they liked it. And, you know, anytime we can snake one in a minor key by the client, it's a big.

It's a good day. Baxter loved this rendition so much that he actually wrote an arrangement for his band, The Taga Club. But no band arrangement for random lullaby? Come on. No band arrangement. But we did find out the piece's actual name, which is only slightly less random. I called it Norwegian Lullaby. Norwegian because he thinks he was channeling the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg when he wrote it back in 2015. It's a greig.

Baxter, what would you say to people of the internet who have been wondering about this for a couple of years? What do you want them to know or what do you want to say to them? Well, I don't know. It's a point of pride that anybody would care. You know, even the people who would have pejorative comments about it took notice of it. We took notice as babies grew sleepy. And Baxter says, If it's creepy, then I'm creepy.

But we don't think that. Nah, Baxter's fun. And minor keys are for everyone. So the mystery has been solved, it seems. Fire up your glowworms, friends. Sweet dreams. Ha ha ha. Hey, buddy.

Endless thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was written and produced by AI, if you didn't like it. But if you did enjoy it, it was written and produced by me, Quincy Walters. And me, Amory Sievertson. It was co-hosted by us and Ben Brock Johnson. Mix, sound design, glowworm ownership, and the fathering of baby Sam by Matt Reed. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Nora Sacks, Grace Tatter, Emily Jenkowski, and Paul Vicus. Special thanks to Amy Gorell for her editing help with this episode.

And to our colleague Leah Davis for working those Hasbrooky. connections. And we have even more thanks to give because we had some guest voices in this episode, including Daryl C. Murphy, Caitlin Harrop, Grace Tatter, Claire Kaiser, and Mike Mosquito. Oh, and hey, if you want to hear more of Baxter Random Lullaby Robertson's music, check out his band The Tiger Club, or keep a sharp ear out in season three of M. Night Shyamalan's Apple TV series, Servant, or in the original karate kid, or in the more recent series, Cobra Kai. He's everywhere. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between creepy minor key songs and the ones that lull you to sleep.

If you have an unsolved mystery, an untold history, or a wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Email Endless Thread at WBUR.org. Night night.