The truth is stranger than fiction, and well captured here

Song-a-week 2025

Song-a-week 2025 #1

Prompt: The passage of time

These are two stories I heard from these fires in LA.  My heart goes out to all those affected. 

(Trigger warning - If you've been through a fire, this could be hard to listen to!) 

Photo credit: Josh Edelson/ADP/Getty Images (Fair Use)


#palisadesfire #eatonfire #lafires #hurstfire #sunsetfire #climatechange #forestfires #firefighters #fireinsurance


Where Fires Burn

Song a week 2025 #2 -

Prompt: Off the Rails

I was staying up way too late doomscrolling, LA fires, war, impending doom of 4 years of a dangerous megalomaniac, climate change... And by the time I tried to go to sleep I was just too stressed. I need a lullaby. So, I started singing myself this lullaby. I found it quite soothing. 

I turned on the light wrote down the words, went downstairs and recorded a bit on my phone, and went back upstairs and went to sleep.

Simple, but effective.

photo credit: A painting I picked up at Goodwill with no signature

Dream Deep

Song a Week 2025 #3 

Prompts: 
Lost in Translation (using another language) 
and Roses (well, that's the part that I used) 

The title/chorus is a french phrase that is generally translated as meaning "Let's send them packing". Specifically, it translates to "Let's send them on top of the roses", as in, throw them into the thorns. 

If you are curious about what I refer to in the last line of the last verse, check out electiontruthalliance.org , SMARTelections.us , and Dire Talks on YouTube. The graphs are intriguing, if not straight -up damning. 

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Photo: Adobe Stock Image

Envoyons-les sur les Roses

Song a week 2025 #4

Prompts:
- Dorian Mode
- "How Did You Know?"

This started with some chord progressions and the chorus came up, kind of non-dorianish, and various bits of verses and a bridge came in with some of the dorian-ish progressions.
I usually write lyrics first, so this was different. It's more cohesive than I thought it would be... Although it doesn't make perfect linear sense, It's still a song. 

It's basically reflective of the angst of going through a month everyday since January 20th, with general disconcerted musings. 

Trigger warning - It includes some vague imagery of a disturbing situation. 

Where We Are Going

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. 
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Photo Credit: Fair use; author unknown; please advise, if known

DOGE Hacker (Ask an Axolotl Parody)

Song a week 2025 #14 - 
Prompts - Save Your Breathe (songaweek. org)
and Thought Police (reddit)

I didn't use these prompts explicitly, but they framed the story for me. 

I came up with the eerie melody line for the chorus, and then the words came from there. 

Photo by Marilu Domingo-Ortiz

They're Coming

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:

Sent away tired and hungry

My intentions  misunderstood

Imagination’s taking over 

Beyond my neighborhood

The ceiling turned to starlight

The carpet turned to waves

I drifted toward the wild side

Where dreams my mind had saved



Chorus:

My room turned to an ocean,

My bed became a boat,

The stars guided my journey

For days I would float.

I sailed to the wild things

Tamed them with a tricks

Howling at the moonlight 

Roaring loud and quick



Verse 2:

They crowned me king of thunder,

On a shore of fire and gold,

Their eyes were fierce with wonder,

Their hearts were brave and bold.

We danced beneath the branches,

Where time began to slow,

But somewhere deep inside me

Heard something tell me “go.”



Break:



Verse:3

The sea grew still and silent,

The stars began to fade,

I dreamed of soup and comfort,

And love that never strayed.

I sailed back through the shadows,

Through calm and gentle seas,

To find my room was waiting 

Still warm, still home, still me.



Chorus:

My room turned to an ocean,

My bed became a boat,

The stars guided my journey

For days I would float.

I sailed to the wild things

Tamed them with a tricks

Howling at the moonlight

Roaring loud and quick

Wild Things.wav

The Drowning Hour is a raw, acoustic journey through a severe depressive episode and the slow, fragile rise that follows. Across fifteen intimate songs, a single close-mic’d tenor voice carries you from detaching and drowning to noticing the first crack of light and finally breathing again.

The Surface

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
     There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
     Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
     Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
     Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
     He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
     Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

John Keats

The Human Seasons

Audrey week 40

week 44

written/recorded (live) within 60 minutes https://www.reddit.com/r/songaweek/comments/1okn9ep/submissions_week_44_theme_the_60_minute_song/

a cannonball flew through it all 2 years ago
out of a blue sky there came a bolt that hit the walls
and made them fall

how long did you carry that cannonball, that cannonball?
you took it everywhere, every day, even on holiday
it was your baggage weight

our marriage had stood for so long
all that it took was just the one
cannonball

but I wouldn't change a thing
I wouldn't change a single thing
despite it all
despite it all
despite it all
despite it all

Cannonball

Written for Songwaweek 2025 (60 minute song)

-Hey Stranger-
Hey stranger, how are you?
I saw something funny
at work
no one got it
but you would've laughed 
till your sides were sore
Why don't we talk anymore?

Hey stranger, what's new there?
I saw what you posted -
the new hair. It's different. 
Remember how long it was
when we were in school?
Yeah, we thought that we were pretty cool

I've got more to share
If you ever decide to pick up your phone
I know that you're there,
and I'll keep sending memes
until you text me back
to leave you alone

Hey stranger, I'm joking
I'm sorry, whatever
I'm being a bother
I'll try again later
I'll try again later

Hey stranger

Verse 1:

My six-string’s singin’, from the crowd there’s a roar,

Dopamine dancin’ from my brain to the floor.

The groove is bumpin as the night takes its toll

Ain’t no feeling like rock ’n’ roll.



Chorus:

Good-time feelings rollin’ in my bones,

Good-time feelings puts me in the zone

Good-time feelings, it’s pure delight,

I’m flyin’ on good-time feelings tonight



Verse 2:

Music is my natural high,

Rollin’ like thunder in a clear blue sky.

Don’t need no bottle, don’t need no line,

 good solid rhythm puts me on cloud nine.



Chorus:

Good-time feelings rollin’ in my bones,

Good-time feelings puts me in the zone

Good-time feelings, it’s pure delight,

I’m flyin’ on good-time feelings tonight.



Break:



Bridge:

The good-time feeling got me again

I don’t think it will ever end

Every smile, every song, every spark I find

Lights up the dopamine in my mind



Chorus:

Good-time feelings rollin’ in my bones,

Good-time feelings puts me in the zone

Good-time feelings, it’s pure delight,

I’m flyin’ on good-time feelings tonight

Good-Time Feelings.wav

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.

They're Coming

DharmikaMusic

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