Auld Lang Syne

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Only "Happy Birthday to you" is sung more often than Scotland’s hymn of conviviality.

It is possibly the most-sung song by most people in musical history, a veritable anthem for the world.

Yet, of all these millions who sing it annually, only a few know the original (or even correct) words, and even fewer understand what they mean.

Generations of errors have been incorporated into the original lyric; it may take another millennium to get rid of them.

John Cairney – actor and authority on Rabbie Burns

Chorus

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

"Auld Lang Syne" is literally "old long ago" or in "days gone by", that memory haven where the best of the past is stored by all of us. This is where nostalgia lives, a gentle reminder that grows more poignant as we get older. It is this that sweetens Burns’s cup o’ kindness a lovely phrase.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

There is something more than mere sentimentality here. There is genuine sentiment, in the 18^th-century sense, almost a "pre-sentiment". We need to remember so that we can embrace the future. Good memories, like good dreams, have a purpose; they clear things up; they get rid of the rubbish. In the same way, a "guid greet" can do you the world of good.

And surely ye 'll be your pint' stowp,
And surely I 'll be mine,
And we 'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

A pint-stowp was a tin measure of two-quarts – half an (imperial) gallon, enough to get anyone going for the night. Burns’s point was that each of us can afford to stand our own round ad it would be a poor world if you did not stand your friend a drink.

III

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine,
But we 've wander'd monie a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.

This verse sounds like a remnant from the old song that Burns rescued in order to make this song. Ayrshire is more rolling countryside than braes (hills), although Burns knew about gowans – that "modest, crimson-tipped flow’r", the daisy. In this verse and in the next, he is a man remembering boyhood friendships – the kind that last forever in the mind.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

That friendship was between men; wading in streams was not such a free experience, for girls, even sonsie, robust Ayrshire farm girls. "Dine" is dinner, meaning the evening meal, although in Burns’s time, and for many Scots yet, dinner is taken at noon.

The "seas between" suggests an exile which Burns never went into, except, perhaps in his last years at Dumfries. "Sin" in the last line, is simply a contraction of "since" for ease of singing; Burns was too good a lyricist not to know to accommodate the

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie 's a hand o' thine,
And we 'll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne!

This is the very stuff of Burns; a firm, honest, open handclasp between men. "Fiere" is a standard of any kind, a gauge by which Burns compares one man to another. The term comes from a spinning process, one that Burns may have picked up in his brief involvement with heckling flax at Irvine in 1771.

"Guid-willie" is goodwill and "waught" is a generous swig of any liquid, so Burns here is telling us to drink up, no timid sipping at the lip, but a good trusting swallow, with head laid back and eyes closed, when we are at our most vulnerable.

Chorus

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!


Auld Lang Syne - the Music?
Northumberland Pipes
Scottish pipes
Piano
Accordian

Other traditional airs
The dark Isle
The Eriskay Boat Song
The Flo'ers of Scotland (pipes)
The Flo'ers of Scotland (lament)
The Green Hills of Tyrol
Loch Lomond
Scotland the Brave
Scotland the Brave
Scotland the Brave - English
The Skye Boat Song