Say Goodnight

Our Christmas album, Ray Davies, and Otto Frank

Don’t take this the wrong way. The thing I always liked about being a teacher was the summer. I’m not being jokey here. I need to break my life up into segments to make sense of things. To rejuvenate. A change will do you good they say, and it’s true. I can’t imagine living somewhere other than the Northeast. I love the seasons. Spring wouldn’t be so glorious if we hadn’t just gone through a cold dark winter. And my wife’s favorite season, autumn, brings a much needed break from summer’s heat. And so on. You get what I’m saying?

So, I liked the teaching but by June (some years it was more like February) I was done. A few months off and I was usually ready to go back with a new energy. It’s with that same optimism that I look to the end of this year of 2024. Personally it was a decent year…some good some bad. That’s life. Still, I’m glad to put it behind me— and being naturally optimist, I expect better things in 2025. More songs, more rehearsals, more recording projects, more shows, more trips, more time outdoors, more time with family and friends. Reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Ray Davies of The Kinks: “Be an optimist instead / And somehow happiness will find you / Forget what happened yesterday / I know that better things are on the way.” If we don’t have hope we got nothing. Also reminds me of the years that I taught The Diary of Anne Frank. I was always so inspired by her story and by her father Otto Frank. Upon being captured by the Nazis he said, “for the past two years we have lived in fear. Now we can live in hope.” If he can say that under those circumstances…well then I’ve got no excuse—gotta live in hope.

The last couple of weeks the band started playing a song we recorded in 2013 for a split Christmas album we did with the band Taggart. The whole thing was my friend Jim Becker’s idea and he spearheaded the project. Our buddy Matt Gorman mixed the songs for both bands and Matt Hanemann designed the cover (we just recently brought Matt back to do the cover for our most recent record Enemy Sublime). We covered the Ramones’ Christmas song and contributed three originals including the song “Goodnight to the Last Night”. It’s been a lot of fun to bring this back to the set and what a joy to play it with Pete Smith on guitar (at the time of the recording we were a 3-piece as John Williams, our former guitarist, had just recently left the band). To quote the song: “Say goodnight to everything gone wrong / Say goodnight and agree to carry on / Sing a song of good cheer for times long gone / On the night, the last night of the year”. Have a listen here.

I love a fresh start. So sayonara 2024! I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading my posts and listening to my songs. Thanks for supporting the band. God bless you and all that good stuff. See ya next year, - Mick (I’ll be off the next 2 weeks…next post on 1/3/25)

P.S. Our last show of the year is Saturday 12/21 at Todd Ellis’s Starving Artist Cafe in Stockton, NJ from 6:00-9:00. Great food. BYOB. We’ll be joining Todd as his backing band for the songs from his 2024 EP, and we’ll be playing our own music including “Goodnight to the Last Night” as well as covering The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” and some other Christmas classics.

Goodnight to the Last Night
By Mick Chorba © 2013 Dinner Time Music ASCAP

Say goodnight to the last night of the year
Say goodnight to the last night of the year
You can sing a song of good cheer for times long gone
On the night, the last night of the year

Say goodnight to everything gone wrong
Say goodnight and agree to carry on
You can sing a song of good cheer for times long gone
On the night, the last night of the year

Let the sleigh bells ring
Let the children sing
Like holy angels caroling
On the night, the last night of the year

Say goodnight to the good times and the bad
To the worried times the weary times and then
You can sing a song of good cheer for times long gone
On the night, the last night of the year

Let the sleigh bells ring
Let the children sing
Like holy angels caroling
On the night, the last night of the year

Let the sleigh bells ring
Let the children sing
Like holy angels caroling
On the night, the last night of the year