EveryNew Year ’s Eve , after thechampagnehas been bolt down , the orchis has drip , and everyone is feeling very merry indeed , revelers queue up the same song they ’ve been queuing up for ten . You recognize the one — it makes you cry out , even though you do n’t understand it and cognize almost none of the words .
A fistful of options pop up when you search for the signification ofauld lang syne : “ prison term / days gone by , ” “ sometime time ’s interest , ” “ long long times / ago , ” and even “ once upon a time ” among them . The most common consensus is something like “ for honest-to-god time ’s sake , ” which is about as direct an interpretation as you could get , as the word - for - word rendering is “ old long since . ” The stemma about “ for auld lang syne ” is essentially , “ for ( the sake of ) erstwhile multiplication . ” ( For the record , itnever saysthe wholly cockeyed “ for the sake of auld lang syne . ” ) Beyond the words themselves , there ’s even less agreement about incisively how the tune came to be a New Year ’s Eve custom .
For Old Time’s Sake
The strain originated as apoem , but it probably was n’t written byRobert Burnsas is commonly believed — at least not all . The poet was plainly the first person to pen down an honest-to-goodness Scottishfolk song(it bears more than a authorize resemblance to “ Old Long Syne , ” a lay that was printed by James Watson in 1711 ) . Burns himselfsaid , “ I took it down from an old man , ” and whether it wastranscribedor co - author , it ’s safe to say that the “ Auld Lang Syne ” we know today is some combining of an old poem and Burns ’s creative stimulant .
In any lawsuit , Burns send a copy of the verse form to a friend in 1788 andwrote : “ There is more of the fire of aboriginal genius in it than in half a dozen of forward-looking English Bacchanalians ! ” later on he contribute it to the Scots Musical Museum .
Five years later , Burns write to James Johnson , who was assembling a Christian Bible of one-time Scottish songs : “ The following song , an sure-enough song , of the olden times , and which has never been in print , nor even in manuscript until I pick out it down from an old man . ”
It ’s unclear whether Johnson associate Burns to the song in his mention , but by the time the book was published in 1796 , the poet was drained . He ’d never know that those speech would eventually help oneself secure his own ethnic immortality .
Name That Tune
The password are n’t the only element that evolved over the year ; it ’s believed that the original tune is different than the one we drunkenly hum along to today . Originally , the Song dynasty had a more traditional folk speech sound , one that can be heard in ( of all things ) 2008’sSex and the Citymovie . This version is still performed today , but with much less frequency than the New Year monetary standard . The strain we all have it away was used at the suggestion of music publisherGeorge Thompson .
How , then , did a Scotch folk birdsong with a murky provenience and nothing at all to do with New Year ’s Eve become associated with the holiday ? It ’s largely thanks to bandleader Guy Lombardo . In1929 , Lombardo and his band fiddle “ Auld Lang Syne ” as transitional music while performing at New York City ’s Roosevelt Hotel during a New Year ’s Eve programme . It was played just after midnight , and heard over radio and television airwave .
A Global Tradition
Today , “ Auld Lang Syne ” is one of the most placeable song around the world , where it ’s played at funerals , at celebrations , and as a monition thatclosing timeis draw near at stores throughout Japan .
To shanghai your day of the month this New Year ’s Eve , teach the right wordshere — and do n’t worry too much about the meaning . As Sally Albright says inWhen Harry Met Sally … : “ Anyway , it ’s about old friend . ”
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A version of this narration run in 2018 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
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