Song a Week 2025 #5 

The "Ask an Axolotl" song was stuck in my head, like an earworm that has hacked into many of our brains recently. And what's going on in D.C. would not leave my head either. 

I wrote another song this week, but I couldn't finish work on it, because this one was insistent on being written. 

It's odd writing about this insanity with a children's song, but, this is all so very, very odd. 
.
.
.
.
.
Photo Credit: Fair use; author unknown; please advise, if known

DOGE Hacker (Ask an Axolotl Parody)

Beneath the Oaks is a moment of light and healing in Luminor’s Ashes & Shadows album.

After grief and burden, this track finds shelter in nature — laying down sorrow beneath ancient branches, breathing in peace, and finding strength in stillness.

Acoustic guitar, piano, strings, and a folk choir of voices weave together into a warm, pastoral soundscape. It is a song of release, resilience, and renewal.

Beneath the Oaks

Verse 1:

What makes the colors drift like smoke on air?

What pulls the purple ribbons everywhere?

Is it a message riding on solar winds,

Or just the night showing off again?



Chorus:

Picture before the dawn,

Pulling my spirit on.

Celestial mystery glowing in the night,

Wakes my soul to sing

This wonderful glorious thing

The shimmering aurora lights.



Verse 2:

Why do those colors quiet all my fears?

How do they make the world disappear?

Is it a whisper only the heart can hear,

Or just a sign that wonder is very near?



Chorus:

Picture before the dawn,

Pulling my spirit on.

Celestial mystery glowing in the night,

Wakes my soul to sing

This wonderful glorious thing

The shimmering aurora lights.



Bridge:

And in that glow, I feel so small,

Yet somehow connected to it all.



Chorus:

Picture before the dawn,

Pulling my spirit on.

Celestial mystery glowing in the night,

Wakes my soul to sing

This wonderful glorious thing

The shimmering aurora lights.

Aurora Lights.wav

Verse 1:

Ringmasters shouting what they want you to believe

Like lions roaring, spitting out words to deceive

Cotton-candy promises melt on your tongue,

But the sweetness fades quickly 

When the promises come undone.



Pre-Chorus

Spinning on a wheel

How’s that make you feel



Chorus:

Bread and circuses, playing games with your mind,

Flashing lights and noise designed to keep you blind.

Every trick they pull, every reason they defend —

I’m living in…….

The show that never ends.



Verse 2:

Neon carousel spinning faster every day,

Voices in the loudspeakers telling you what to say.

Mirrors bend the moment till you can’t see straight,

And the spotlight keeps you guessing 

What is real or what is fake.



Pre-Chorus

Spinning on a wheel

How’s that make you feel



Chorus:

Bread and circuses, playing games with your mind,

Flashing lights and noise designed to keep you blind.

Every trick they pull, every reason they defend —

I’m living in…….

The show that never ends.



Break:



Pre-Chorus

Spinning on a wheel

How’s that make you feel



Chorus:

Bread and circuses, playing games with your mind,

Flashing lights and noise designed to keep you blind.

Every trick they pull, every reason they defend —

I’m living in…….

The show that never ends.

The Show That Never Ends.wav

Many the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kist away the tears
That fill’d the eyes of morn;—the laurel’d peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;—
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,—
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what has been.
E’en now, dear George, while this for you I write,
Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,
And she her half-discover’d revels keeping.
But what, without the social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?

John Keats

To My Brother George

Long Live The Games

“Singing with the Dead Tonight” 
Deborah Goldbaum Kelly & Erin Wolf © 2025 
Song A Week 2025 - Week 48

caught inside a whirlwind
wind knocked out our lungs
lungs pushed to their limits
limits we’ve put on

on the other side of sunrise
sunrise screaming through 
through the pieces of a life
living with the ghost of you	

you tried to show me how 
how to live within the truth
truth in a world of lies
lies we hope to survive

surviving my mercy mile
miles from what we could see 
seeing now with open eyes
eyes like yours and  like mine

one more laugh, one more cry, and song
never truly on my own
one more chance to try and get it right
singing with the dead tonight 

beyond the veil, I can hear you
your whispers in the night
nightly visits linger on
on until the early morn

mourning and letting go
going slowly as it comes
coming home after all
all in time, we will			

one more laugh, one more cry, and song
never truly on my own
one more chance to try and get it right
singing with the dead tonight 

one more laugh, one more cry, and song
never truly on my own
one more chance to try and get it right
singing with the dead tonight 

Singing with the Dead Tonight (with Deborah Goldbaum Kelly & Erin Wolf)

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Intro:



Verse 1:

We pitched our tent by the creek,

While the daylight disappeared.

You wrapped up tight in your coat,

But you never pulled me near.

I tossed more logs on the fire,

But the flames they just wouldn’t stay.

Feels like a cold winter night

As those pine trees start to sway



Chorus:

I feel a chill outside,

You gave me the cold shoulder.

The fire’s burning low,

The coals are getting colder.

Smoke’s stinging in my eyes,

Tears just won’t stop flowin’.

I can’t outrun the hurt—

When that north wind starts a blowin’

Me away.



Verse 2:

I wandered down by the water,

Just to clear my crowded mind.

Thought about the way we started,

And the warmth we used to find.

The creek kept whisperin’ softly,

Like it had somethin’ to say—

Maybe our love needed tendin

Before it slips away.



Chorus:

I feel a chill outside,

You gave me the cold shoulder.

The fire’s burning low,

The coals are getting colder.

Smoke’s stinging in my eyes,

My tears just won’t stop flowin’.

I can’t outrun the hurt—

When that north wind starts a blowin’

Me away.



Chorus:

I feel a chill outside,

You gave me the cold shoulder.

The fire’s burning low,

The coals are getting colder.

Smoke’s stinging in my eyes,

My tears just won’t stop flowin’.

I can’t outrun the hurt—

When that north wind starts a blowin’

Me away.



Outro:

Blowin Me Away.wav

What time has done
(Mark Irving Anderson)

…I’ll see dark hair turning gray
You’ll see youth just fades away
We’ll both see time is on the run
When the age shows in our eyes
Counting years, we’ll realize
These aren’t the only changes 
When we see what time has done…

[Chorus]
…There’s a grandbaby coming soon
A brand-new reason to paint the moon
Anniversaries and memories saved
In pictures of our wedding day
Morning prayers are still the same 
For your health and a summer rain
Where lovers chase the clouds from the sun
Look what time has done…

…I’ll have your hand when we get old
When those chilly nights blow cold
Time can’t undo what we’ve begun
I’m gonna be here by your side
This true heart could never lie
It’s more than a promise
When we see what time has done…

[Chorus]
There’s a new moon hanging in the sky
A brad-new reason to question why
Why the mystery of love is kept
Between the pages that we’ve read
Morning prayers are still the same
For your health and the summer rain
Where lovers chase the clouds from the sun
Look what time has done…

[Bridge]
…Changes come and changes go
Sometimes fast and sometimes slow
All those changes will change again
On and on until the end…

[Chorus]
There’s a new moon hanging in the sky
A brad-new reason to question why
Why the mystery of love is kept
Between the pages that we’ve read
Morning prayers are still the same
For your health and the summer rain
Where lovers chase the clouds from the sun…

[Outro]
Morning prayers will always be the same
For your health and a summer rain
Where seasons chase the rising sun
Look what time has done…

What time has done

I.

Hush, hush! tread softly! hush, hush, my dear!
All the house is asleep, but we know very well
That the jealous, the jealous old bald-pate may hear,
Tho’ you’ve padded his night-cap — O sweet Isabel!
Tho’ your feet are more light than a Faery’s feet,
Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet, —
Hush, hush! soft tiptoe! hush, hush, my dear!
For less than a nothing the jealous can hear.

II.

No leaf doth tremble, no ripple is there
On the river, — all’s still, and the night’s sleepy eye
Closes up, and forgets all its Lethean care,
Charm’d to death by the drone of the humming May-fly;
And the moon, whether prudish or complaisant
Has fled to her bower, well knowing I want:
No light in the dusk, no torch in the gloom,
But my Isabel’s eyes, and her lips pulp’d with bloom.

III.

Lift the latch! ah gently! ah tenderly — sweet!
We are dead if that latchet gives one little clink!
Well done — now those lips, and a flowery seat —
The old man may sleep, and the planets may wink;
The shut rose shall dream of our loves and awake
Full-blown, and such warmth for the morning take,
The stock-dove shall hatch his soft twin-eggs and coo,
While I kiss to the melody, aching all through!

John Keats

DOGE Hacker (Ask an Axolotl Parody)

DharmikaMusic