Posted on: Friday, December 31, 2004
Blame 'em for 'Auld Lang'
Advertiser News Services
The phrase "auld lang syne," title of the tune sung at midnight on New Year's Eve, is Scottish dialect for "old long ago."
Advertiser library photo • 1975 How did the old Scottish tune become so well known in America? The answer lies in the power of television to publicize and promote a song.
When the New Year's Eve festivities in New York's Times Square were first televised, viewers were treated to coverage of Guy Lombardo's dance band playing live at the Roosevelt Hotel, and later the Waldorf-Astoria. The conductor decided to close with the tune, "Auld Lang Syne," in part because he had grown up in western Ontario where there were many of Scottish descent familiar with the tune. It was also a way of tipping his hat to the broadcast sponsor, Robert Burns Panatela cigars.
As his dance band became a fixture on New Year's Eve broadcasts, so did the song, and Americans adopted as their own the custom of singing "Auld Lang Syne" to bid farewell to the old year.
So "take a cup o kindness yet, For auld lange syne!"
It is often attributed to Robert Burns, Scotland's most famous poet, but according to Tanya Gulevich, editor of the Encyclopedia of Christmas and New Year's Celebrations (Omnigraphics, Inc.), Burns actually found a fragment of an old folk ditty, restored it, and added new verses. Even though most people are familiar with just the first two verses, scholars attribute only the song's third and fourth verses to Burns.
Guy Lombardo's band started the tradition of "Auld Lang Syne" shortly after New Year's shows started appearing on TV.
Robert Burns
