Sugar Skull Serenade

Paint the skulls in candlelight

Let the colors bloom tonight

Rooftop altars, sugar smoke

Lifting memories into flight

I hear the brass in the alley

I feel the moon on my tongue

Every laugh is a little prayer

Every heart's still young

I bring marigolds and lanterns

I bring stories wrapped in gold

Names we carry through the silence

All the brave and all the bold

We dance where the shadows shimmer

Where the sorrow learns to sway

In the fever of the evening

We can borrow back the day

Step by step

Let the night open wide

Between memory and joy

We are glowing inside

Turn the rooftop into thunder

Turn the sorrow into salt

With a painted skull beside us

We belong, we belong

Hey, hey, dancing the fire

Hey, hey, lifting higher

Call the names, ring the bell

In the after-hours spell

Piano lights on the pavement

Trumpets tracing silver rain

Rust drums whisper like old friends

Naming joy inside the pain

I set a candle for the absent

Then I smile at what remains

Every mile of this remembering

Teaches my body how to change

And I spin with the accordion

Soft and muted, warm and bright

Through the ribbons of the moonbeams

Through the velvet edge of night

If the road is full of echoes

Let them harmonize instead

We will toast the ones before us, then we'll dance the dark away

Step by step, let the night open wide

Between memory and joy, we are glowing inside

Turn the rooftop into thunder, turn the sorrow into song

With a painted skull beside us, we belong, we belong

Hey, hey, dance in the fire

Hey, hey, lift it higher

Call the names, ring the bell, give me after hours spell

When the festival is over

When the dawn begins to show

We will keep the painted heartbeat

Keep the ember glow

For the ones we love are circling

In the music, in the light

And the night that opened like a festival

Will live in us tonight