Don't Stop Believin'

It began with a small, deceptively simple gesture: I shook my head.

Todd, karaoke host and self-appointed despot of the Rusty Lantern Bar, extended the microphone like it was the Holy Grail. “Your song,” he said. Not a song. The song. My song. The one that had become law, legend, and the unofficial national anthem of Tuesday nights: Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

I said, “Not tonight.”

Clocks stopped. The patrons of the Rusty Lantern froze, their drinks paused uncertainly between tabletops and lips. A dart froze in mid-flight, trembling. Todd blinked like he’d just been named the captain of the Titanic, after it hit the iceberg.

“You don’t mean that,” he said. “You can’t mean that. It’s tradition. You’re the closer. You’re the glue.”

I did mean it. After eight years of ending the night with the same song, I simply stopped.

Like most karaoke bars, the Rusty Lantern smelled like spilled beer, lemon cleaner, and existential dread. Its patrons were creatures of habit: Marv, who had been nursing the same lager since 1997; Janine, who treated Total Eclipse of the Heart like a spiritual exorcism; Ricky “Two Songs” Ramirez, morally opposed to stretching into three; and the hipster couple—we never had bothered to learn their names—who inflicted obscure musicals on us like medieval torture.

When I shook my head, the regulars froze. Marv, gripping his barstool as if it were a lifeboat, whispered, “If he doesn’t believe, then what’s the point of any of this?”

Janine’s voice cracked. “This is a coup! This is the end of karaoke as we know it!”

Todd tried to restore order. “Karaoke is a circle of trust! Karaoke is a covenant!” His hand trembled over the mic like he was trying to calm a herd of stampeding llamas.

It was too late. Factions formed instantly. The Believers insisted I had a moral obligation to continue my streak. The Non-Believin’, the few clear-headed folks who understood that my singing voice sounded like a chain-smoking goose, with a cold, choking on LA smog, immediately began demanding freedom from the tyranny of ritual.

Pamphlets appeared on tables. Someone began sketching a “Karaoke Constitution.” Todd’s microphone became a gavel. The debate raged until the sun began streaming in the front windows.

By the following week, the fight had spread beyond the bar and into the public sphere.

Petition tables appeared outside the Rusty Lantern. One read: SIGN TO PRESERVE THE BALLAD. Another: FREE THE MIC! A man in a sandwich board called himself a “Karaoke Envoy” and demanded that I keep him up to date on my location at all times.

Inside, Todd had crowned himself “Supreme Karaoke Commissioner.” He delivered nightly Auto-Tuned oaths, wearing a sash labeled HOST and wielding the mic like a scepter.

Attempts to replace me failed spectacularly. Crystal, all Broadway lungs and unhinged ambition, performed Bohemian Rhapsody with an interpretive dance, a fog machine, and a foghorn. The Believers hurled lime wedges; The Non-Believin’ shouted “LET HER FINISH!” Todd wept openly.

CNN briefly covered it: “Karaoke Strike Divides Community; Authorities Baffled.”

I sipped my whiskey, staring into it. The world had gone mad.

#

By week three, the Rusty Lantern was a fortress of ideological conflict.

The Believers and The Non-Believin’ staged skirmishes. Chairs became barricades; tables became fortifications. Patrons carried printed “song manifestos.” Todd issued decrees: “No song shall be sung without communal consent!”

I became a figurehead without participating: “The Apostate,” the one who had abandoned sacred tradition. Pamphlets with my face appeared around town—halos or devil horns depending on the artist’s mood.

Crystal attempted a coup with Bohemian Rhapsody, performing at precise 5:55 intervals. Midnight interventions outside my apartment ensued, each more dramatic. I ignored them.

Tensions peaked during a spontaneous debate over Sweet Caroline, resulting in a nine-minute-and-seventeen-second chant war.

On Tuesday of the fourth week, I was subpoenaed via a note nailed to my front door:

“Greg Marsh, your presence is required at the Rusty Lantern. Failure to appear will result in exile and public shaming.”

The “trial” began. Todd, wearing a Burger King crown and waving the mic like a scepter, presided. The Believers and The Non-Believin’ chanted alternately: “SING!” / “FREEDOM!”

Todd banged the mic. “You have abandoned us,” he intoned. “Explain!”

“I just don’t feel like singing,” I said.

The gasp rattled the neon Bud Light sign. Chairs toppled. Marv cried. Janine fainted. Crystal pointed dramatically: “If he will not sing, strip him of his chair!” Todd sobbed. I drank my whiskey and pretended nothing extraordinary was happening.

It fell to Cheryl—the quiet regular who sang Fleetwood Mac softly in the corner. She staggered to the stage. “If no one will sing it, then I will.”

Lights flickered. The jukebox hiccupped. Thunder cracked. Somewhere, a comet streaked across the sky.

She sang the opening line of Don’t Stop Believin’, and the room fell to its knees. Patrons wept. Todd held the mic aloft like Excalibur. Dogs howled. The planets aligned.

Cheryl did not merely sing. She channeled. Beers levitated. Neon signs burst into sympathetic flame. Chairs spun slowly in orbit. Patrons clutched each other, chanting along, a bizarre ecstatic ritual.

By the chorus, The Believers and The Non-Believin’ were united, swaying together in ecstasy. The bar was a cathedral suspended in a storm of neon and electricity, and Cheryl was the crowd’s high priest. The universe acknowledged her authority.

#

The Rusty Lantern never returned to ordinary.

Cheryl was canonized as “The Voice.” Tuesdays became liturgy: call-and-response chants, laminated hymnals, ceremonial fog, Todd delivering Auto-Tuned sermons. Pilgrims came bearing glitter and empty beer cans.

I faded into myth. Patrons whispered of me as “The Apostate,” the one who abandoned belief and sparked a revolution that reshaped the moral geometry of karaoke.

Over the following weeks, Todd instituted a “Karaoke Census,” measuring decibel levels and attendance like it was a national election; local schools added Don’t Stop Believin’ to their curriculum; and a man in a trench coat, claiming to be a “Karaoke Analyst,” began live-streaming Tuesday nights as if reporting from a war zone.

I watched quietly, sipping my club soda.

The Rusty Lantern remains a sacred site. Pilgrims arrive from neighboring towns; hashtags circulate online: #VoiceOfCheryl #NeverStopBelievin. Tuesdays are no longer just karaoke; they are pilgrimage, festival, and minor apocalypse rolled into one.

I sit quietly at the back, club soda in hand. I watch Cheryl command the room, cosmic and radiant, the embodiment of musical inevitability. Sometimes, when the chorus hits and the walls vibrate with “DON’T. STOP. BELIEVIN’!” I mouth along.

But that’s all.

Because I stopped singing.

And I’m never starting again.