Continuing our exploration of country music for babies, our initial recommended calming-type playlist, in no particular order, is below. Normally I’d put my caveats, disclaimers and explanations here but Z is strapped to my chest and I want to make sure we hit at least the list before she wakes up. See bottom of the post for those disclosure notes.

1. Love Without End, Amen – George Strait
2. Even If It Breaks Your Heart – Eli Young Band
3. Livin’ On Love – Alan Jackson
4. I’d Love To Lay You Down – Conway Twitty
5. Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good – Don Williams
6. Take Me Home, Country Roads – John Denver
7. Good Stuff – Kenny Chesney
8. Humble and Kind – Tim McGraw
9. Forever and Ever, Amen – Randy Travis
10. Colder Weather – Zac Brown Band
11. Follow Me – Uncle Kracker
12. Springsteen – Eric Church
13. Down the Road – Mac McAnally
14. Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes – George Jones
15. If I Needed You – Emmylou Harris or TVZ, both wonderful
16. Angels Among Us – Alabama
17. What Cowboys Do – Casey Donahew Band
18. Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes – Jimmy Buffett
19. I Hope You Dance – Lee Ann Womack
20. My Church – Maren Morris
21. God Bless the USA – Lee Greenwood
22. I Wish Grandpas Never Died – Riley Green
23. I’m Coming’ Home – Robert Earl Keen

Color on the list. First, no artist appears more than once. We could create a fine playlist with a much smaller handful of artists, but that wouldn’t be as fun for me and wouldn’t capture enough range for baby’s country music learning and enjoyment. Second, as I’ve done with other playlists, the number of tracks here roughly corresponds to how many tracks you’d be able to get onto a burnt CD of my childhood. Third, I’ve focused here primarily, though not exclusively, on calming potential. There’s a great playlist to be made for when you want to purely rock out with baby during awake time, but it’s not this one. Of course it’s not purely about calming – there is consideration given to quality of lyrics and themes and a number of other variables that I’ll unpack in a later post. And so, fourth, this isn’t even the top songs that I find most calming for either me or the baby or solely my favorite group of calming-type songs primarily because, as I’m learning in many other respects too, this playlist is not just about me and I want to try to capture some of those other variables. And as always apologies to the unlisted songwriters who I don’t think ever get enough credit.

If readers have any recommendations that I can add to Z’s playlist, please let me know!