It's All About the Doom!
Relax, it's only the news...
Summary
A formally intricate meditation on how catastrophe is delivered in soothing packaging — news as lullaby, doom as nursery rhyme. The chorus ("tra-la-la-loom") performs what it describes: a marching tune that rocks us back to sleep. The bridge breaks the fourth wall to note that the song is written in hendecasyllabic meter — eleven beats per line — and then observes, smiling, that "even doom prefers a crafted form." Five verses cover the media ecosystem, currency debasement, Cassandra-via-palantír, and the weight of global awareness compressed into a smartphone.
Lyrics
[INTRO – bells and soft snare; choir hums like breath on glass]
[spoken, sotto voce]
Tonight's bulletin is tailored just for you.
[VERSE I]
My phone rings storms from faraway streets,
Snow climbs eight floors like a patient vine,
Sun scalds the salt flats white with disbelief,
I tuck the news in coats of nursery rhyme.
Each headline fits me like a borrowed shoe,
I lace it tight and march it round the room.
[PRE-CHORUS]
Between the chime and drum we soothe our nerves,
A marching tune that rocks us back to sleep.
[CHORUS]
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom,
Wrapped up in tinsel and a cradle croon.
We sway in step, we hum, we resume,
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom.
[VERSE II]
The feed refreshes faster than a blink,
Raw rumors first, then filtered, then denied,
A spokesman trims the edges while we think
The truth arrived already, took a side.
Our mirrors learn to speak in curated tones,
We nod along, alone with everyone.
[PRE-CHORUS]
A lullaby with boots upon the floor,
The drum says "hush," the bells say "march once more."
[CHORUS]
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom,
Candy-striped warnings in a major tune.
Hold hands, keep time, the night's in bloom,
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom.
[VERSE III – Cassandra aside]
I peer into a polished palantír,
It shows a trigger, smudged and hard to read:
A breakthrough hums, efficiency draws near,
One spark too clean, an order-jump of speed.
Could it be storms, or vaccines late to land,
Or ships asleep across a narrow strand?
[BRIDGE – fourth wall break]
Count with me now, eleven beats per line,
Hendecasyllabic, hear it bend and shine.
[aside, smiling]
See, even doom prefers a crafted form.
[VERSE IV]
Currencies remember ancient sins,
We shave the coin and swear it wasn't us,
Abstract tokens dream of neutral skins,
Yet power stains them soon enough to rust.
History nods, repeats the quiet cue,
Debase the metal, then debase the view.
[PRE-CHORUS]
A carol learned before we learned to read,
A march we take to help our hearts agree.
[CHORUS – choir answers]
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom,
[choir] Tra-la-la-loom!
Sugarplum sirens in the anteroom.
[choir] Hush now—
We smile, we sigh, we doom-scroll and bloom,
It's all about the doom, tra-la-la-loom.
[VERSE V]
Once news took weeks to walk a distant road,
Now worlds arrive before we finish tea,
Awareness weighs us down, a global load,
Ignorance slept; knowledge hums off-key.
We rock the globe as if it were a child,
And hope the rocking keeps the fire mild.
[OUTRO – lullaby hush]
So lay the drumsticks gently on the snare,
Let bells dissolve like frost into the air.
If dawn brings more, we'll meet it with a tune,
Soft-marching, swaying, singing through the doom.
Detail
The song's formal achievement is that it enacts its subject: it is a catchy, soothing piece of music about how catchy, soothing music soothes us into accepting catastrophe. "Tra-la-la-loom" is not ironic decoration — it is the mechanism being described in real time. The listener who finds themselves humming along is inside the argument.
The hendecasyllabic bridge is the song stepping outside itself: eleven syllables per line is the meter of Catullus and Tennyson, adapted here for a fourth-wall break that turns the formal act of counting syllables into a demonstration that even our most self-aware aesthetic moves are themselves a form of coping. "See, even doom prefers a crafted form" is both a joke and a serious claim about what art does to anxiety.
The Cassandra verse (III) is notably hedged: the palantír shows "a trigger, smudged and hard to read" — the doom is genuine but illegible. The song does not tell us which catastrophe is coming; it describes our relationship to catastrophe in general. Verse IV on currency debasement ("debase the metal, then debase the view") gestures toward a specific contemporary anxiety without naming it. The outro chooses softness: lay the drumsticks down, sing through the doom.
Cross-references
- Song of the Day (album)