Did you try contacting the person who uploaded the video on YouTube? DaXia999 or something. Maybe they can tell you something where they got the video?
This is copied from “Sputnik news” on Russian symphony stories. The article is speaking of the Russian composer Stravinski. “Curiously: a man of the world, an individual with “multi-media mentality”, Stravinsky sought to bring up his own children with a distinct “national flavor”. All of his songs, not only these – with texts – are from collections of folk texts. Moreover, the composer unearthed the most genuinely-national, primordial, acerbically-unusual for today’s ear, which has left contemporary language; that which sounds uniquely beautiful… “Untranslatable phonemes of the Russian language,” commented the composer. Another one is called “Tilly-bom” (tilly-bom, tilly-bom, the cat’s house is on fire – all of our today’s children grow up on this.) Just as they do on the tales “Gooses-swans” and about the bear…”
Actually, a quick search again with the quote Mary Miller wrote here confirms one thing: Stravinskys “Tilly-Bom” is another song, not the same “Tili Tili Bom” we’re talking about here. So the origins still remain a mystery… Sorry to disappoint, I couldn’t find anything either!
this song the composer Lev Zemlinsky for a horror film http://lev-zemlinski.livejournal.com/151984.html
My friends phone spoke the words tili tili bom we’re in America. No Russian connection this song is creeping him out.
The song plays in the show Bitten in the third season episode 8. The episode is titled tili tili bom. Its a bit creepy, indeed.
Ask Donald Trump…he’s an expert on all things Russian, or even all things…just ask him..in fact he might well have written it himself…
It’s suffice to say Donald Trump is already ‘that guy’, and a ‘douche canoe’ as you so eloquently put it. What is to be gained by ardently defending some self-serving prick anyways?
My parents would sing this to me as a kid. I always knew him as a form of demon that would lurk outside the houses of Russia and if I wasn’t asleep he would come up the stairs and eat me. I knew that Tili tili Bom was my Babushka’s (grandmother’s) lullaby as well, so it’s definitely old. She drew a picture of him when she was about 12 for a project and she drew him dragging bodies through the snow of ‘naughty’ children who would stay up at night. That’s kinda the image I got of him, so yeah I would make sure my feet were no way near the edge of the bed and that I went to sleep straight away.
Please ask her about the origins of this song if she is still alive, this would help us find out where this song came from.
Two things in all this might be good clues that Tili Tili Bom is an actual lullaby. First, the fact there is a different “Tilly Bom” song (mentioned in other comments) hints very strongly at the sound “tili bom” being a widely known (therefore old) rhythm vocable. It doesn’t prove anything, but it gives it weight. Secondly, the fact that it is not credited in TRACKMAN also implies that there is nobody to credit or pay, making it a public domain song, and most likely, one that people are not supposed to look up in the end scroll because they already know it. It is possible that it was played by the same orchestra/band that executed the rest of the OST, that it is not explicitly stated because it is considered an evidence, and that the song itself doesn’t “count” as they didn’t compose it. There are two ways to get closure on this: books of Russian lullabies, and Russian people old enough to have had their parents terrify them to sleep before 2007. Both would give you a pretty definitive answer. On the other hand, since this song became an internet phenomenon, the last place you will get any confirmation is the internet: it’s like listening for a serial killer in the middle of a Halloween party. If you figure it out, update us!
It was actually made for the horror movie “Путевой обходчик”, a Slasher/Thriller that came out in 2007, and didn’t exist before that. It was later used as a lullaby, simply for the melody. It was more often hummed or sung in it’s original language, so small children wouldn’t fully understand, nor pay attention to words.
It’s not ancient and it’s not a “terrifying lullaby for kids” it was simply made for the above movie. Media is just over doing it.
Ok, to add to this, I did find the same recording that’s on youtube on Spotify with the same cover image. However, when I went to the artist page, his name was James Smith (really generic) and he had no images or bio yet, which basically doesn’t happen with artist pages. Weird….
I represent composer who wrote this song, Lev Zemlinski. His name was in credits as score composer. But he wrote this song too. His daughtet Anna sang with her school mates. Some fresh links from composer: https://youtu.be/vWo61uHj9Bc
Wasn’t the inspiration for this music children who don’t want to go to sleep and the Bogeyman? You said it yourself, some nursery rhymes are creepy. And well, we actually have three old nursery rhymes under that theme here in Brazil: nana neném, boi da cara preta e bicho-papão. Other countries must have their own songs about this.
I do know some examples of that as well, like the Romanian children’s song “Nu mi-e frica de Bau Bau”. However, the song in this case was made for the horror movie only, nothing more than that. It is not an actual lullaby, and it obviously has never been sung to children, unlike the media claims.
My Russian grandparents definitely know the song. They sang it sometimes. So it’s definitely older than just the movie.
If your grandparents are still alive, ask them about the lullaby, depending on what side of the family they are on if your parents are still alive, ask whatever side of the family your grandparents are on.
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Idk who you are I know that you might think telling someone to kill themselves is funny but it’s not so please don’t EVER SAY THAT
Great article 🙂 I heard this song relatively recently and I absolutely LOVED it, precisely because it is so creepy. To help answer your question..my family and I are originally from Ukraine (Russian-speaking) and when I asked my parents about Tili Tili Bom, they said they’d never heard it before. And my parents are pretty knowledgeable about songs and stories from our “motherland.” My mom used to sing all kinds of old Russian and Ukrainian lullabies to us when we were little, and actually many of them really do have somewhat creepy undertones (I guess to encourage kids to go to sleep faster, lol). However, I think this particular song was made up recently for a movie, and therefore, it is not a traditional lullaby. I recently watched some short horror story anthology series on Netflix, one of which was called “Nightbird” or something like that. This song played throughout the movie and I kept thinking “why does it sound so damn familiar??” And then I remembered it was the Tili Tili Bom melody. The “Nightbird” title is in reference to the second verse of the song. P.S. In the fourth verse where the English translation says “for you it is stolen,” this is actually translated to “he is creeping behind you,” followed by, as you have correctly written, “..and he’s about to catch you.” I can see where you got the word “stolen” from though..the Russian word “Kradyotsa” (meaning “creeping”) when conjugated is very similar to the word “Krast” or “Kradyot,” (which means “to steal” or “stealing”). Really good job on the translation though!
Reading through the comments, it seems some people’s parents and even grandparents have heard the song, so clearly I may be wrong about it not being an original lullaby. I have one living grandparent left, so perhaps I should ask him.
Made a search on Russian language sights. Findings as follow- Written by composer Lev Zemlinskiy to the Russian horror movie TRACKMAN ,2008. lyrics by Rustam Sautov singers-Polina Voropaeva,Anna Zemlinskaya,Sergei Melnikov,Angelina Frolova
If your grandparents are still alive, ask them about the lullaby, depending on what side of the family they are on if your parents are still alive, ask whatever side of the family your grandparents are on.
If you want to see more creepy stuff try searching CREEPY RUSSIAN PLAYGROUNDS on Google Images: that should give you some more nightmares!
It’s pretty obvious that the lullaby has existed for a while. It’s probably a folk song, or otherwise, a lullaby inspired by said folk songs. People’ve had their grandparents sing this, so it’s been around for a while.
Random people online saying “my grandparents sung this to me” is not obvious proof. It was written for a movie in 2007. People are lying.
But assuming they’re false doesn’t prove that they’re lies- it just shows that you don’t believe them, and honestly it’s not that crazy to assume that it was a real, yet weird, song.
I don’t know who composed it but I have heard this story of a stranger lurking outside in two forms. Lullaby and a bedtime story. In most slavic countries it’s common to tell scary stories so kids stay in bed. Basically the story went something like this.. There is a man who walks at night with a huge sack and goes from house to house. If he finds children awake after bedtime he shoves them in a bag (like Santa’s sack) over the arm, drags them back to his home and cooks and eats them. Note: I only heard it a few times when I was misbehaving before bed and my grandma had enough of me. Yes, it is scary, and yes it is extremely efficient. No, I am not traumatized. As far as I understand its floklore of sorts. My grandma says her grandma used to scare her with the same story.
I think this song is about a man who steals children like krumpus. Maybe it’s a Christmas them lullaby
I agree that the song is really creepy, especially for children, but to say that only Russian parents do stuff like that is wrong. I’m from Quebec and even though I wasn’t told this story when I was a kid (my parents are French), a lot of my friends talked about the ”Bonhomme sept-heure” which literally means ”7-o’clock man”. Basically, he would come get you if you weren’t sleeping by 7 pm. Both of those stories are Bogeyman type of stories.
I love this song! I have to listen to it on repeat, going between russian and englsih to fall asleep at night. My favorite version is the english though it sounds more chilling at least to me.
can some people send some send me what we know about the song and the sites were you get it from i am gona do a podcast on it and i need a head start send it to me at rikoteague6@gmail.com or post it here and if you whant to be in the podcast send me a mesg to my eamil or here in the post
Bested? Good Lord have you tried searching…libraries? Or contacting Russian-speaking, like, actual humans, maybe asking them to search the Russian Internet or (again) Russian libraries etc.? You could use Reddit to find scads of interested parties I’m sure. My god, man, if the Internet goes down we are well & truly fucked because my tiny cadre of Generation Xers are the last generation to know that there’s hoards of information out there that, yes, is still NOT on the World Wide Web (that we built most of, by the way). Seriously, I do know the Internet won’t bgo down,” I’m just saying that culturally speaking, if you think a pre-2007 lack of info from the Web means the info’s not out there? I dunno, dude. But I weep for you and your kin, and our planet.
This song was written for this Trackman movie by Rustam Saitov, a playwright and poet. The confirmation is on this page on an official site of a Russian city Ekaterinburg. You can translate it: https://xn--80aanlo6abmdk.xn--80acgfbsl1azdqr.xn--p1ai/%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8/%D1%81/%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2
i can not believe that it is real cause i saw a man just walking out side my house after i played this song and i also heard my front door open to my house and so i might die
Tilli tilli bom is my favrite song it is not scary. Every night before I go to bed I listen to it❤️❤️😁😁😈😈
