The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, a short novel by Charles Dickens, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol and one year before The Cricket on the Hearth. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s.
The book was written in late 1844, during Dickens' year-long visit to Italy.John Forster, his first biographer, records that Dickens, hunting for a title and structure for his next contracted Christmas story, was struck one day by the clamour of the Genoese bells audible from the villa where they were staying.
Two days later Forster received a letter from Dickens which read simply: ""We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow!", and the writing of the book began. Forster describes Dickens' intentions in writing The Chimes as striking "a blow for the poor".
Dickens returned to London for a week in December 1844 and gave readings of the finished book to friends prior to publication, to judge its impact. The artist Daniel Maclise, who had contributed two illustrations to The Chimes and attended two of these events, portrayed the reading of 3 December 1844 in a well-known sketch.
The Chimes (later Lenny Cocco & the Chimes) were an American doo wop group from Brooklyn.
The group came together under the direction of lead singer Lenny Cocco in the mid-1950s. Their first single was a version of Tommy Dorsey's "Once in a While", released on Tag Records. The song became a hit in the U.S., peaking at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. The follow-up single was "I'm in the Mood for Love", a song from the 1930s. This hit #38 later that year. In 1962, they began recording as Lenny & the Chimes, and moved to Metro Records and then to Laurie Records in 1963. In 1964, they released the single "Two Times" on Vee-Jay, but broke up shortly after.
In subsequent decades they have re-formed for the doo-wop revival circuit, usually under the name Lenny Cocco and the Chimes.
The Chimes is a short 1844 novel by Charles Dickens.
The Chimes may also refer to:
Shallow capacity is bearing all I see and I know
It's disease, it's loss
It's death knocking at my door
I click these thoughts to something else, something more
And I'm so blue, so blue
Detached harmonies, all the airways scream dissonance
And we know of broken life, broken homes
Broken hearts and broken bones
Recycling the paper of a crying world's suicide note and
We're so blue, we're so blue
So blue, so blue
See the world spinning round
A sucking hole that souls go down
Embrace the sorrow of today
Because repentance finds a way
Only his blood can heal our wounds
Only his blood can heal our wounds
And if repentance finds a way
What's left today to be
Blue, so blue
Blue, so blue
A final symphony
The precipice too close, you're scaring me, back away
Sin is real, it doesn't feel, it always only always steals
Run to the cross the only joy that's real
So blue, so blue