Goodnight RZA. Goodnight GZA.

What makes good music to fall asleep to? Something quiet, perhaps. It seems appropriate to choose something soothing and not too intrusive. For Dorian, my 3 year old son, it's the Ramones. They are probably his favorite band at the moment and he'll listen to them in any situation but you can always tell he's ready for a nap when he comes to you in the middle of the day and asks you to put a Ramones cd on. He's typically asleep by song 2. I was recently playing the guitar so he and and I could have a sing along jamboree and I asked him what bands/songs he wanted to play next. "The Ramones!" he shouted. I should have seen it coming but I didn't so after fumbling through 3 or 4 of their songs I looked over to him and found him nodding off on the couch. Songs about Burge King and slugs are apparently the ultimate sleep aid. Try it on yourself sometime.

When I was in 4th grade I would fall asleep to the radio every night, making use of the sleep function on my clock radio. Top 40 radio was my Nyquil of choice at the time and some nights were more sleep inducing than others. I was usually out within the 30 minute limit I set up but one particularly special night saw me pushing the limits as the dj was debuting an amazing single by new (to me) band Bon Jovi. "You Give Love a Band Name" woke me out of my slow descent into slumberland and had me up for a while pondering the awesomeness of what I had just heard. For some reason, I was certain that they must look like Menudo, all clean cut and super cool. I was more than a little surprised when I saw the video later that week and discovered that my night time imaginings were horribly, horribly misguided.

My favorite story of music to fall asleep to involves my friend Kevin. His cd collection was always horribly organized and it got to the point where none of the cases actually matched the cds inside. Instead of trying to amend the situation he turned it into a game. When he was ready to go to sleep, he would search through his cd piles, scattered across the floor of his room like a rug, and pick the case of an album that would be a nice, calming end to the day. It didn't matter to him what was inside, by choosing that case he had committed to listening to whatever cd was within. One time he opted for the case of a soft and pleasing record, early Palace Brothers or Slowdive or something, and ended up with The Wu-Tang Clan. It must have been a rough night trying to drift off to dreams with ODB barking in his ear.