All about "Auld Lang Syne"

"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the melody of a traditional folk song (Roud # 6294). It is known in many countries, especially in the English-speaking world. Its traditional use is to say goodbye to the old year at midnight on New Year's Eve. In a broader sense, it is also sung at funerals, graduation ceremonies, and to say goodbye or to close on other occasions. The international scouting movement in many countries is using them to close jamborees and other functions.

The Scottish title of the poem can be translated into English as "long ago" or less literally as "long ago", "days have gone by" or "old days". Hence, "For auld lang syne" as it appears on the first line of the chorus could loosely be translated as "for the old days".

The term "Auld Lang Syne" is also used in similar poems by Robert Ayton (1570-1638), Allan Ramsay (1686-1757) and James Watson (1711), as well as in folk songs before Burns. Matthew Fitt uses the phrase "in the days of Auld Lang Syne" as the equivalent of "Once Upon a Time" in his story of fairy tales in Scottish.

The history

Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788 with the comment: "The following song, an old song from ancient times that was first printed, not even handwritten for me to take it. By an old man." Some Texts were actually "compiled" rather than composed by the poet; the ballad "Old Long Syne", printed by James Watson in 1711, shows considerable chorus resemblance in the first verse and Burns' later poem and is almost certainly from the "old song" itself derived.

To quote the first verse from James Watson's ballad:

• When an old friend has been forgotten
• and I never thought
• The flames of love went out
• and all gone and gone:
• Has your darling got so cold now?
• that loving breast that is yours;
• You can never think that
• In the long old Syne.

Choir:

• In the long old Syne my jo
• In the long old Syne
• You can never think that
• In the long old Syne

It is fair to describe the rest of the poem to Burns himself.

There are doubts whether the melody used today is the same as the one originally intended by Burns but is widely used in Scotland and the rest of the world.

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

Lyrics

The song begins with a rhetorical question: is it right to forget the old days? The answer is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships. Alternatively, “should” can be understood as “if” (expression of a conditioned mood) refers to a possible event or situation.

Thomson's Select Songs of Scotland was published in 1799, in which the second verse about salute and toast at the end was moved to its current position.

The song is most often used only for the first verse and chorus. The last lines of both are often sung with the additional words "For the love of" or "And the days of" instead of the simpler lines from Burns. This allows for a note for each word, rather than the slight melisma required to match Burns' original words to the melody.

The English "mutable" version proposed here retains the Scottish expression "auld lang syne" instead of translating it as "a long, long time ago" or something like that. For a full explanation of this phrase, see the second paragraph of this article.

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