For Auld Lang Syne

Tis another year gone by, it went in the blink of eye.  As is our New Year's Tradition, we went to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes and then dinner at the Oasis.  Parke loves their chicken parm.  Anyway - ever wonder about the song Auld Lang Syne. Well I did - and here is what I found.


The poet, Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum with the remark, “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man". Some of the lyrics were indeed "collected" rather than composed by the poet; the ballad "Old Long Syne" printed in 1711 by James Watson shows considerable similarity in the first verse and the chorus to Burns' later poem, and is almost certainly derived from the same "old song". It is a fair to guess that the rest of the poem Burns himself wrote.




There is some doubt as to whether the melody used today is the same one Burns originally intended, but it is widely used in Scotland and in the rest of the world.

Singing the song on  New Year's Eve very quickly became a Scots custom that soon spread to other parts of the British Isles. As Scots (not to mention English, Welsh and Irish people) emigrated around the world, they took the song with them.

Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo (gosh I remember watching him every New Years Eve with my Grandmother, that was BDC, Before Dick Clark) is often credited with popularising the use of the song at New Year’s celebrations in America, through his annual broadcasts on radio and television, beginning in 1929. The song became his trademark. In addition to his live broadcasts, Lombardo recorded the song more than once.
 

Here is the best part - here in the song phonetically written as the Scots would of pronounced it -

Shid ald akwentans bee firgot,
an nivir brocht ti mynd?
Shid ald akwentans bee firgot,
an ald lang syn*?

CHORUS:

Fir ald lang syn, ma jo (or ma dear), fir ald lang syn, wil tak a cup o kyndnes yet, fir ald lang syn.

An sheerly yil bee yur pynt-staup!
an sheerly al bee myn!
An will tak a cup o kyndnes yet,
fir ald lang syn.

CHORUS

We twa hay rin aboot the braes,
an pood the gowans fyn;      (what?)
Bit weev wandert monae a weery fet,
sin ald lang syn.

CHORUS

We twa hay pedilt in the burn,
fray mornin sun til dyn;
But seas between us bred hay roard
sin ald lang syn.

CHORUS

An thers a han, my trustee feer!
an gees a han o thyn!
And we’ll tak a richt^‡ gude-willie-waucht^‡,
fir ald lang syn.

CHORUS

An wit that it a nodder day in Catasauqua fir auld lang syn -   Happy New Year to you!!!!