Music To Fall Asleep To: 15 Songs That Will Cure Your Insomnia

Short and sweet, this intro should do just that: introduce you to the idea of relaxation and sleep with a warm, meandering guitar riff and a soothing voice. Settle back. Stretch out. Flip the pillow. Onra & Quetzal's Tribute came out in 2006, unfairly passed over for whatever reason the music gods thought acceptable. It's a combination of Onra's off-kilter melodies and Quetzal's inimitable ear for harmony and structure, equal parts Dilla and Curtis Mayfield. You can get the whole album here, but the 18-track magnum opus is all over the map of soul music, whereas this intro is one of the only ones that that can put you to bed.

Though he's found his niche in the horn and soul market, Ray LaMontagne can still get all worked up and sleepy-sad with the best of them. This guitar-driven cut is off his 2006 album Till The Sun Turns Black, and it navigates its 6+ minutes with a quiet patience that's accentuated by some airy piano and Ray's huskiest voice. Something about that steady guitar though...by the time the song ends you'll find your pulse has slowed down at least 10 BPM. You may also have stretched out in the closest nook you could find.

Lemon Jelly is a band that sounds like they've never stressed about anything in their entire life. They are light, fresh, and sweet easy listening with just enough of a citrusy tang to keep your earballs involved. Most of their tracks are a slow burn, and "Come" is a classic example. The beat never really changes, but it's so smooth that the tiny shifts in melody and the eventual introduction of a harmonica make you feel like a feather slowly drifting to earth, floating left and right in between sleep and dreams. This track comes off their 2000 masterpiece Lemon Jelly.ky. Give it a listen below:

Yes, it's a whole album. Sometimes it takes a little while to fall asleep. Boards of Canada paired ambient synths and electronic experimentation with rap beats and the result is a dreamscape that flows from song to song, more like a DJ set than a full-length album with starts and stops. In any event, it's a little more...active than some of our other choices, but sometimes its the meditation of a steady beat that puts you to sleep rather than whispers and coos.

To be honest, one of the reasons the Velvet Underground made this list is because it always feels like Nico was yawning whenever she sang. Not that that's a bad thing, I just giggle to myself when I think of someone yawn-singing. Maybe that's a personal problem. Regardless, the band made the most of it and made beautifully soft and sweet songs like "Femme Fatale" sneak into the back of your eardrum. It stays steady in terms of volume and intensity but manages to stay interesting with samba acoustics underneath to really set the tone.

Ever been to the moon? Well, if you ever get up there, pop this into your NASA-issued 8-track for your first jaunt around the craters. Groove Armada found a way to flow on air, filling this spacey love song with synths, trumpets, and a main riff made of stardust: "If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there..." The track is one long hypnosis, taking its time to lock you in a trance before putting you to bed. That's one of the definitive qualities of these songs. It's wrong to think that a sleepy song needs to be quiet or gentle. Sure, it doesn't hurt, but we're lulled by rhythm and predictability more than comfort. Think about white noise. It's just that: noise.

"A Walk" comes off Tycho's 2012 release Dive. It's a piece of distorted beauty, as if someone had taken their amp to the beach and the sea water and sand had inhabited the speaker just enough to give it a grainy, windswept feel. The heavy bassline keep echoing synths tethered to the ground, leaving them to float like clouds above the backbeat. Tycho uses empty space like another layer on the cake, and the result is an incredibly soothing track.

If you want to talk about music that ages well, Jeff Buckley's Grace is going to be part of the discussion. The sheer tenderness of the entire album (and one its finest vocal performances) crystallizes in "Lilac Wine," a song defined by the choice to let Buckley's 6,000-thread-count voice hang in the air by itself at multiple points. This track also contains what is one of the consummate instruments for sleeptime—the drum brushes. It's like they're saying "shhhhhhhhh," but not in a shush way. Drum brushes would never do that. It's more of a soothing, "shhhhhhh relax, relaaaax..." And when they hit for the chorus in "Lilac Wine," I feel...unsteady.

We promised ourselves this list wouldn't be 15 Bon Iver songs, but it'd be a crime to leave the father of flickering fires and flannel out completely. "Beach Baby" is the kind of acoustically driven melancholy that makes you just want to lie down, close your eyes and listen to nothing else for a little while. This track makes the cut over plenty of other worthy efforts because of those drowsy slides that end the song. They replace Vernon's voice with ease, echoing his notes and wobbling up and down the scale like pulled taffy. At it's heart, "Beach Baby" is a waltz, gently leading you through the motions and rocking you to sleep.

All our experience and comfort in sleep is derived from one specific memory, one specific motion. Back and forth we were rocked, cradled into complicity and rest by a rhythmic cradle. See where we're going here? Wilsen took everything that made us dance about Grimes' original "Oblivion" and transcoded it into a lullaby that sings us to sleep. It's the B-Side of her angelic and hauting "Sirens," an EP that also claims "Dusk."

The Books are two godfathers of sample-based collages, pulling sounds from all aspects of life. Conversation, creaking doors and exclamations are all part of their fabric. It can create a familiarity that puts you at ease immediately—just listen to "The Lemon of Pink Pt. 1." A lazy guitar bends around the riff with strange alien beauty, the sort of half-melodies you hear as sleep starts to cloud your conscious thoughts. Strings and voices seem to trail off into nothingness, the sort of unfinished logic your brain starts to accepts when the dreams start.

Like "Settle Back," "Therapy Car Noise" is tragically short. I can only assume its creators understood the song to be an interlude, which is silly and would make me furious if the song wasn't so goddamn beautiful. Still, I guess sleep is only an interlude from what we define as our "real" life. But aren't the lives of dreams as real as any life you lead awake? There's a fantastical, mystical nature to the lilting piano that instantly transports you somewhere deep underground to a hidden cave. Or possibly an underwater hotel. The song also features an early glimpse of Daniel Rossen's glorious signature quaver in the days before Grizzly Bear. Check it out.

If this list skewed a little closer towards jazz, "A Summer Thing" might just be a soldier in the greater army of great saxophone lullabies. The instrument is made for that sort of feeling—it's drowsy and smooth, designed to calm your brain down and walk you through the transition between cat and nap. Though Zoot knows his way around the horn, it's Bucky Pizzarelli's jazz guitar that really gives this "Thing" its slumber. Sheer bliss.

One of the best albums of all time, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue has multiple songs that have transcended the jazz canon and been recognized worldwide as heartbreaking works of staggering genius. This is one of them. The trumpet basically pulls the covers over your head for you, and the band does well to give off those smoky lounge vibes (with a couple drum brushes in there, naturally) while Miles spills his thoughts onto the wax.

Cat Power teamed up with M. Ward to create this 18-minute dreamscape off 2006's The Greatest. She comes up to whisper right in your ear (in a charming, non-threatening way), never letting the song get too far away from her words despite the massive length. There's something very gentle about the way guitar and voice interact here, each giving the other the time to do its thing before taking up the reins again. Cat keeps things light and stead with the breathy voice that has become her calling card, and the songs slips by like water in the current.