An American singer sent goosebumps to her Filipino followers after she performed a cover of a Philippine folk song.
Singer Lauren Paley, known as the “Stairwell Siren” online, released a video of her version of the lullaby on her social media accounts on March 11. She currently has 936,000 subscribers on YouTube.
“Filipino*** (my bad) but this is for all of my amazing followers from the Philippines! This song is actually so beautiful. Hope I did it justice,” Lauren captioned her post.
As of writing, Lauren’s video on Facebook earned over 1.4 million views.
Her post also garnered 74,000 reactions and 1,600 comments.
The cover was requested by one of Lauren’s followers on TikTok.
“Sing ‘ili ili.’ It was the scariest song in the Philippines,” the online user requested on the video-sharing service.
The TikTok user was referring to a lullaby titled “Ili Ili Tulog Anay” from the Panay Island. According to a report by Nolisoli, the lyrics of the song translate to something along the lines “Sleep, little one. Your mother isn’t here because she is out buying bread.”
Lauren also added the text “Scaring my neighbors with a creepy Filipino folk song” before her cover of the song.
This rendition is part of her video series called “Creepy Stairwell Songs” wherein she performed haunting versions of songs requested by other TikTok users.
In the video clips, Lauren also said that she sings within the stairwell of her residence to “creep out her neighbors” as her voice echo against the walls.
Her version of the Filipino lullaby, meanwhile, earned praises from Filipino fans.
“Goosebumps all over my body myghaaad. Such a great voice! You sound like a native Filipina when you sing it,” one Facebook user said.
“More a lullaby than a folk song. Hauntingly beautiful rendition!” another Facebook user commented.
Others found Lauren’s cover to be more calming than scary.
“Ili-ili is really creepy Filipino lullaby…but when she sung it it really became what a lullaby truly is…I want to sleep right now,” one Facebook user said.
Some Filipinos also recalled the 2006 horror flick “White Lady” that popularized the folk song back then.
“This song is very beautiful, yet it is also scary because of the movie back then it’s traumatizing you know,” one Facebook user said with a laughing emoji.
“I always remember this song from a Filipino movie where this song was sung by a woman who was burned alive and died but still goes home to her grandma who has not realized her grandchild’s dead,” another online user commented.
“White Lady” stars Angelica Panganiban as the ghost “white lady” and actresses Pauleen Luna and Boots Anson-Roa.
It was directed by Jeff Tan.
Pauleen performed the lullaby in the movie.