W. Curt Vincent
Editor
Auld Lang Syne.
Three words many of us — and perhaps most of Scotland County — said on Friday as we rang in 2022.
It makes sense the song by that name would be popular in Scotland County … Scotland being the operative word. After all, it’s one of Scotland’s — the country, not the county — most famous songs.
So those who have a family tree whose roots, and probably even the first few layers of branches, originate in the “old country” know the history of and words from this song well.
But historians still call it “the song that nobody knows.” And yet we’ve all tried to sing it on New Year’s Eve.
So exactly what does “Auld Lang Syne” mean?
The meaning of ‘Auld’ is “Old” and the meaning of ‘Lang Syne ’ is “Long Since.”
Obviously a translation doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but if you change “auld lang syne” to a less literal meaning of “long ago” to something along the lines of “old times” or “good old times,” then it begins to make a bit more sense.
If the “auld lang syne” meaning has to do with remembering days gone by, the song must reminisce about the good ol’ days, right? Sort of. I’m told it’s a bit boozier than that.
The original five-verse version of the song — a 1788 Scottish poem by Robert “Rabbie” Burns — essentially gets people singing, “let’s drink to days gone by,” an appropriate toast for the New Year. That’s right: Sometimes deemed the most famous “song that nobody knows” by music historians, “Auld Lang Syne” is a piece of the long oral tradition of getting drunk and belting out a tune.
But the phrase “auld lang syne” didn’t make its first appearance in 1788. It actually appeared in a Scottish song as early as 1588, but it was poet Burns who gave us the version we prefer to butcher every Dec. 31.
It was also in 1788 that Burns embellished the old ballad with a few verses of his own, mostly adding lines about drinking, like “we’ll take a cup of kindness yet” and “we’ll take a right good-will draught.” The ballad quickly became a standard for the Scottish New Year celebration of Hogmanay.
As Scots immigrated around the world, they took the song with them. Eventually, North American English speakers translated Burns’ dialect into the common lyrics we know today, made famous in part by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians band. The group performed the song on New Year’s Eve from 1929 until about 1977. It’s his version that plays after the ball drops in Times Square every year.
What you may or may not know is that there are five verses to the song. I imagine not many in Scotland — the country or the county — ever sing more than the first one.
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-506-3023 or [email protected].