Auld Lang Syne

Everybody knows ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Most people will have sung it at some point or another – probably on a New Year’s Eve, and most likely whilst crossing arms and linking hands in a circle with a lot of other people that they don’t really know.

In common with a number of other things that ‘everybody knows’, however, most of us probably don’t really know ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that well at all. How many of us can do more than mumble our way through the first verse and chorus? How many know that, though the incomparable Rabbie Burns published it in 1788, he actually based it on a much older ballad – “Old Long Syne” – by one James Watson, printed in 1711 and of which the first verse and the chorus bear a remarkable resemblance to Burns’ later version. Watson himself very probably ‘borrowed’ the ballad from an even earlier – and unrecorded – source.

It may seem that the end of February is an odd time to be pontificating on the origins of the traditional New Year ballad. It might perhaps make more sense if we associate it with Hogmanay, the Scottish equivalent – for Hogmanay is more properly the name given to the last day of the Old Year, and the underlying ethos of the festival is to do with clearing out the vestiges of the year that has gone, to allow a clean break and to welcome in a young, New Year on a happy note.

‘Auld Lang Syne’ is thus more than anything a song of farewell and remembrance. As a result, in addition to its appearance at Hogmanay, it is also frequently sung at funerals, graduations and as a farewell or ending to other occasions.

Thus it was that a disparate group of friends and colleagues, sitting round a large wooden table in a pub on Richmond Hill (called – delightfully – ‘The Lass O’ Richmond Hill’) one Sunday lunchtime at the end of February… crossed arms, linked hands in a circle, and mumbled their way through the first verse and chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. We may not have won any prizes or many talent show votes, but we were saying ‘goodbye’ – or rather ‘au revoir’ – to the Kickass Canada Girl, and we mumbled from the heart. BCs gain is, in this case, very much England’s loss – though I will naturally do my best to drag her back at every possible opportunity.

The fourth verse of the ballad is germane (with a translation for the Sassenachs):

“We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn,
Frae mornin’ sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne”

“We two have paddled in the stream,
From morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
Since long, long ago.”

This time next week – the Girl will be back in Victoria…