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Lullaby (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” Dead Space version

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Historians restore 1880s recording of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

This 123-year-old audio clip of a woman reciting the first verse of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” may sound terribly scratchy — but it’s music to the ears of sound historians.

This earliest-known American recording of a woman’s voice and the first sound recording intended for commercial use was posted online last week by the National Parks Service.

The historic track was discovered in 1967 in Thomas Edison’s former laboratory — now a museum — in West Orange, N.J., where the inventor had embarked on a talking doll business in the 1880s. The recording was meant to give voice to a children’s toy. When found, the record was severely damaged and presumed to never be heard again.

But thanks to a collaboration between Thomas Edison museum curator Jerry Fabris and scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Edison’s young nursery rhyme reciter once again has a voice.

DS_Twinkle_DistributionMix01

Dead Space 2

song: twinkle twinkle little star
album: dead space 2 original score
2011

it’s a popular english nursery rhyme. the lyrics are from an early nineteenth-century english poem, “the star” by jane taylor. the poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in rhymes for the nursery, a collection of poems by taylor and her sister ann.

twinkle, twinkle, little star,
how i wonder what you are.
up above the world so high,
like a diamond in the sky.

when the blazing sun is gone,
when he nothing shines upon,
then you show your little light,
twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

then the traveller in the dark,
thanks you for your little spark,
he could not see which way to go,
if you did not twinkle so.

as your bright and tiny spark,
lights the traveller in the dark.
though i know not what you are,
twinkle, twinkle, little star.

+: not included in the ost cd