It’s autumn! We’ve been reviewing our faults and our misdeeds, resolving to do better, and gathering songs for our fall concert, “Sin Tax!” (December 13, 14, 15).

Charlton Heston as Moses
Is it repentance time yet?

And how appropriate a theme it always is. For some, fall is atonement season. But why atone for sinning when you can celebrate it in song? Not only are there oodles of songs about sins, an awful lot of them seem to be country songs. So we’ll be sinning—pardon me, I mean singing—“sad-ass songs,” as Dolly put it; love and loss as only Elvis could croon it; gamblin’ and robbin’ via Jimmie Rodgers; prostitution, thanks to Cole Porter (how’d he get in here?). We will not ignore lying, maternal neglect, corporal punishment, and murder, Appalachian-style. And because, as Wynton Marsalis said in the Ken Burns documentary, all country songs are about sin and repentance, we’ll have some repentance songs, too.When we chose the theme for this fall’s concert, I expected to be singing about grammar and sentence structure. But I was surprised at how few really good songs there are in that category, outside of Schoolhouse Rock! No, sin is a far richer vein to mine. (Yes, we’ll also sing about mines.) And we’ll feel free to drop the final g’s from our participles.

10 Commandments + Moses
Unfortunately, we will not be singing “The Ten Commandments” by The Fugs.

A bushel of these songs are arranged and expertly set on us Mobsters by some of us Mobsters (Dean, Connie, and Brent, that is), keeping it in the Family. And making their Mob debut this season are two new members, Tenor Avi and Soprano Raelyn, helping with the chores and beautifully filling out our sound. We’re sure glad to have them.

So mark your calendars to hear our newbies, relish our misdeeds, wallow along with us in regrets, and oh, yes, close with our annual Xmas singalong, and we’ll all feel better.