At least today's is at least mildly interesting and requires a bit of a story before I really get into the meat of it and announce a winner. So, growing up, I was the biggest chicken on the face of the Earth. And by that I mean I was afraid of the dark. It was so bad in my youth that I had to sleep with the hall light on and the door open. Similarly, I could not sleep in complete silence (which may have frightened me more than the dark and might explain why I talk so darn much), so along with the hall light, I always had to have a radio on. This was particularly amusing when characters in my dreams would start singing and I would wake up only to realize the song they were singing was on the radio...but this is a story for another time.
Long past the point when I ceased needing the light and the radio, I continued listening to music while I fell asleep. I don't anymore because I like to let my mind wander before I sleep (it makes for some interesting dreams, to be sure, and I find I come up with my most creative ideas just before drifting off--though I sadly forget a lot of them), but even through high school I liked to have music on, not for fear of the dark/silence so much anymore, but rather as a soothing effect. For this reason, there are several songs that, to this day, I equate somewhat to sleeping and falling asleep.
So, without further ado...SOME ACTUAL WINNERS FOR A CHANGE.
Winner: Down By Sally Gardens (Traditional) - This is another one of those songs with a specific "version" that has significance to me. It's a beautiful song, of course, but one of the CDs I would often leave on repeat while going to sleep was filled Celtic instrumental arrangements. It was one of those "mood" CDs you see at Walmart, and it was, for the most part, unremarkable...except for this one song. For whatever reason, I always seemed to wake up to this song. Only it wasn't the usual "time to go to school" waking up where I would launch out of bed and race through my morning routine. It seemed like every morning I would wake up leisurely to this song and would have enough time to just lay in bed listening to it.
Now, I know this isn't the same as a song that I fall asleep to...but it still reminds me of that setting: laying in bed, drowsy, drifting off but not quite asleep, conscious but not quite awake...it could easily go the other direction and lull me back into sleep. The feeling of reminiscence is strong enough that I feel like I would be remissed to not give this song the win for the day. I really wish I could find the exact version of the song that makes me feel this way on Youtube, but alas, I cannot. If anyone is interested, I own the CD, so I can send the song out...as long as you promise to delete it after you listen to it. Don't want to be breaking the law, after all.
Runner Up: Final Fantasy VII: Overworld Theme (Orchestral Version)(Nobuou Uematsu) - Here is another song that requires a specific version to be relevant...but fortunately, I was able to find it. This is a beautiful arrangement of the overworld theme from Final Fantasy VII, one of the most overrated games in history...but still worth playing, in my opinion. But that, too, is a discussion for another time.
This is a song that frequently came up in the playlists I created to help me sleep (by this time I was probably in college and didn't listen to music frequently when trying to sleep...but often enough), but unlike Sally Gardens, I really did fall asleep to this song (rather than just waking up to it). It isn't quite as strong in my reminiscence as Sally Gardens, so I couldn't in good conscience call it the winner, but it's still a beautiful song that lulls me to sleep with its sweeping, lazy melody. As a sidenote: the piano version of this song from Advent Children is also quite pretty, but since I very rarely listen to music while sleeping anymore and this version is considerably newer than the original (and indeed the orchestral version linked above), it does not have the same sleepy connotations as its orchestral cousin.
Runners Up:
Dreams of the Shore Near Another World (Yasunori Mitsuda) - This song is gorgeous. I highly recommend everyone listen to it.
Baby Mine (Bette Midler) - This is another one that relies on my memory...not of the movie Dumbo where it initially appeared so much, but I remember quite clearly one dream I had in which the radio seeped into the dream and one of the characters began singing this song. For some reason that dream/song stuck with me all these years and the song makes me sleepy. It's a pretty song to be sure.
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