Why everyone’s singing about... Auld lang syne
When we finally see off this awful year on Thursday night, people will sing ‘for auld lang syne’… but why?
Well, the sentiment of ‘for old times’ sake’, which the line means in the Scots language, couldn’t be more appropriate. It was traditionally a song of nostalgic bonhomie, and although it is usually credited to the poet Robert Burns, when he wrote the lyrics in 1788 (using a sharpened feather and brown ink) he said it was ‘of the olden times’ and confessed: ‘I took it down from an old man’s singing.’ A ballad published in 1711 called Old Long Syne is very similar.
Singing t he Burns version on Hogmanay quickly became a Scottish custom that spread worldwide, though hardly anyone gets it right – adding the words ‘ the sake of…’ before ‘ auld lang syne’ is a common mistake.
Is it used at other times?
It’s sung at the end of Scout jamborees, at the passing-out parades for military cadets and the end of the Trades Union Congress. It was played at the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, during the 1914 Christmas truce in the First World War, and, in January, MEPs sang it to British colleagues leaving Brussels because of Brexit (although most didn’t know the words).
Did Burns write the tune, too?
No one’s quite sure where the melody came from. Whisper it but it might even be English. The tune has also been used for the Dutch football song Wij Houden Van Oranje (We Love Orange) and for a ditty about fireflies in Japan, where it’s played in department stores to mark closing time. Rod Stewart, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Joel, Boney M and Prince have all recorded the song.
And if it wasn’t for Covid, we’d link crossed arms to sing it.
Yes, although Scottish tradition is to hold hands in a circle, then cross arms for the last verse, before rushing in and out of the centre.
When a grim- faced Queen stood beside Tony Blair at the Millennium Dome to welcome 2000, the fact she didn’t cross arms was ascribed to grumpiness. In fact, she was doing it the correct Scottish way. Only ignorant Sassenachs wouldn’t know that!