The song nearly tore Clean Bandit apart before anyone outside a London studio heard it. The British group had recorded a track about a single mother fighting for her child, with a vocal that came straight from the songwriter's own life. Then, at the last moment, the label demanded that voice be erased.
The single Rockabye arrived on October 21, 2016, credited to Clean Bandit with Sean Paul and Anne-Marie, and the release date itself became part of the story. It was the group's first release after the departure of member Neil Amin-Smith, and it carried a wound that cellist Grace Chatto has never hidden. The original vocal belonged to Ina Wroldsen, who wrote the lyrics about her son.
A lullaby built on lived pressure
The song's subject was never a gimmick. Rockabye nods to the lullaby Rock-a-bye Baby, but its mother is not rocking a cradle in peace: she is working nights, holding things together alone. Wroldsen had lived that pressure, and her performance was the heart of the recording made in 2015 at three London studios. The recording sessions took place in 2015 across three London studios: Club Ralph, The Crypt Studio and Rokstone Studio. The song was built on a simple harmonic loop of A minor, F, G and E minor, moving at 102 beats per minute. That steady pulse gave the story its forward push, even before the vocal dispute began.
Clean Bandit fought for that voice. Chatto has said the group battled the label to keep Wroldsen's vocal on the record, and lost. She called the replacement awful and admitted she nearly left the band over it. Anne-Marie's voice was put in its place, and the finished single went out with a scar most listeners would never hear.
Chatto has said the group battled the label to keep Wroldsen's vocal on the record, and lost.
Filming the video in Spain and London
The video, directed by Chatto and Jack Patterson, found its own way to honour the song. They cast Rita Conte, an actress and pole dancer Chatto discovered in Italy, and filmed her between a Spanish coastal town and a London pub. The clip appeared the same day as the single; by September 2025 it had passed 3.1 billion views on YouTube.
Britain reacted fast. Rockabye entered the UK Singles Chart at number seven a week after release, then climbed to the top on its third week, pushing Little Mix aside. For Clean Bandit it was a second UK number one after Rather Be; for Anne-Marie it was her first. It stayed at number one for nine straight weeks. The single also made a slow but steady climb in the United States. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 100 on December 24, 2016, and later reached number nine, becoming Clean Bandit's best showing there. For Anne-Marie it was her first appearance on that chart, and it remains her highest position.
That run set up something the British charts had never seen. On December 23, 2016, Rockabye became the Christmas number one after already spending six weeks at the summit. No song had ever done that. It was also the first festive chart-topper since 2003 that had nothing to do with The X Factor, charity or a promo campaign.
The strange detail is that the Christmas crown came with the lowest weekly sales ever recorded for the honour: 57,631 copies. The industry had changed, but the song's grip had not. Rockabye went on to lead charts in more than 28 countries, and the track that began with a discarded vocal became Clean Bandit's defining hit. The song's commercial life stretched far beyond the Christmas season. It spent 41 weeks in the UK Singles Chart, and its certifications piled up: triple diamond in Poland, diamond in France, nine-times platinum in Canada, and multi-platinum in twelve more countries. A set of remixes by Jack Wins, End of the World, Elderbrook and others kept the track moving through clubs long after its radio peak.