[infoshare] Re: Daily Info 3 - should Old Acquaintance
- From: "Denise C." <quest74@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: infoshare@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:36:31 -0500
Wow, long but interesting! Thanks, Lynne.
Denise
At 07:24 PM 1/3/2009, you wrote:
Evening, All.
this year we were so busy making noise with our
pots, chimes and bells, we forgot to sing the
time-honored song. Ah well... Here's an
encyclopedic article for ye from our friends at
Wikipedia via Klango. Probably more than you'll
ever need to know about a song in which we only
sing a verse and chorus. However, should you
ever find yourself in a trivia game, you're set.
"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem written by
Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a
traditional folk song (Roud # 6294). It is well
known in many English-speaking countries and is
often sung to celebrate the start of the new
year at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.
The song's (Scots) title may be translated into
English literally as "old long since", or more
idiomatically, "long long ago" or "days gone
by". The phrase "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 older folk songs predating Burns. In his
retelling of fairy tales in the Scots language,
Matthew Fitt uses the phrase "In the days of
auld lang syne" as the equivalent of "Once upon
a time." In Scots syne is pronounced like the
English word sign and the trigonometric word sine.
History
Robert Burns forwarded a copy of the original
song to the Scots Musical Museum with the
remark, "The following song, an old song, of the
olden times, and which has never been in print,
nor even in manuscript until I took it down from
an old man". At the time it was fashionable to
claim someone else's work. It was "traditional";
therefore, one should take Burns' statement with
mild scepticism. Some of the lyrics were indeed
"collected" rather than composed by the poet;
the ballad "Old Long Syne" printed in 1711 by
James Watson shows considerable similarity in
the first verse and the chorus to Burns' later poem.
It is a fair supposition to attribute the rest of the poem to Burns himself.
There is some doubt as to whether the melody
used today is the same one Burns originally
intended, but it is widely used both in Scotland and in the rest of the world.
Singing the song on Hogmanay or New Year's Eve
very quickly became a Scots custom that soon
spread to other parts of the British Isles. As
Scots (and other Britons) emigrated around the
world, they took the song with them.
Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo is often
credited with popularizing the use of the song
at New Year?s celebrations in America, through
his annual broadcasts on radio and television,
beginning in 1929. The song became his
trademark; in addition to his live broadcasts,
he recorded the song more than once, first in
1939, and at least once later, on September 29,
1947, in a record issued as a single by Decca Records as catalog #24260.
However, earlier newspaper articles describe
revellers on both sides of the Atlantic singing
the song to usher in the New Year:
"Holiday Parties at Lenox" (Massachusetts, USA)
(1896) ? The company joined hands in the great
music room at midnight and sang "Auld Lang Syne"
as the last stroke of 12 sounded and the new year came in.
"New Year's Eve in London" (London, England)
(1910) ? Usual Customs Observed by People of All
Classes? The passing of the old year was
celebrated in London much as usual. The Scottish
residents gathered outside of St. Paul's Church
and sang "Auld Lang Syne" as the last stroke of 12 sounded from the great bell.
Lyrics
As detailed above, auld lang syne literally
means "old long since", but a more idiomatic
English translation would be something like
"long long ago", "days of long ago", "in olden
days", or even "once upon a time". "For old
time's sake" or "to the good old days" may be
modern-day expressions, in common use as a
toast, that capture the spirit of "for auld lang syne".
Confusion about the exact meaning of the words
has led to a common addition of "the sake of" to
the last line, despite this not being part of the traditional lyric.
dine = dinner time
Most common use of the song involves only the
first verse and the chorus, with the last line
often changed to "and days of auld lang syne".
Usage
"Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung each year at
midnight on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) in the
United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the
United States, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, and
English-speaking areas of India and Pakistan,
and signifies the start of a new year. In the
United Kingdom, it is played at the close of the
annual Congress (conference) of the Trades Union
Congress. In many Burns Clubs, it is sung to end
the Burns supper. The song is also sung at the
end of the Last Night of the Proms by the
audience (rather than the performers). As such
it is never listed on the official programme.
In Thailand the melody is used along with a
similar lyrical sentiment at New Year and is
commonly believed to be a Thai traditional song.
In Scotland, it is often sung at the end of a
céilidh or a dance. It is common practice that
everyone joins hands with the person next to
them to form a great circle around the dance
floor. At the beginning of the last verse,
everyone crosses their arms across their breast,
so that the right hand reaches out to the
neighbour on the left and vice versa. During the
last chorus, people might start jumping up and
down. When the tune ends, everyone rushes to the
middle, while still holding hands. When the
circle is re-established, everyone turns under
the arms to end up facing outwards with hands
still joined. This is commonly misconducted
outside of Scotland and hands are often crossed
from the beginning of the song; this practice is
incorrect. The correct practice was demonstrated
by the Queen at the Millennium Dome celebrations
for the year 2000. The English press berated her
for not "properly" crossing her arms, unaware that she was correct.
The song is played at the Passing Out Parade of
Young Officers in the Royal Navy as the march up
the steps of the Britannia Royal Naval College.
The song is played at the beat of slow march
after the tune "Will ye no come back?".
Before the composition of Aegukga, the lyrics of
Korea?s national anthem were sung to the tune of
this song; now though, it is used in South Korea
as a farewell song to friends or at funerals. In
both the Indian Armed Forces and Pakistani
Military, the band plays this song during the
graduating parade of the recruits, while in
Pakistan generally it is sung (or the melody played) at farewell events.
In the Philippines, it is well known and sung at
celebrations like graduations, New Year and
Christmas Day. Also, before 1972, it was the
tune for the Gaumii salaam anthem of The
Maldives (with the current words). In Thailand,
it is used for Samakkkhi Chumnum (Together in unity), sung after sports.
In Brazil, Portugal, France, Spain, Greece,
Poland, and Germany this song is used to mark a
farewell. It is also used in the Scout movement
for the same purpose, but with somewhat
different lyrics. A somewhat different use of
the song as a farewell occurred in October 2000,
when it was played as the body of former
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau left
Parliament Hill in Ottawa for the last time,
going to Montreal for the state funeral.
The song is also the official corps song for the Kilties drum and bugle corps.
On the sinking of the Japanese ship Montevideo
Maru in World War II, carrying 1,053 Australians
(mostly POWs), the Australians in the water sang
this for their trapped mates as the ship went
down. Surviving Japanese crewman Yosiaki Yamaji
reflected on this moment as realising what big
hearts the Australian soldiers had.
According to the book "Freedom at
Midnight"(1975) by Dominique Lapierre and Larry
Collins, the song was played to accompany the
departure of the final British troops from India
through Mumbai's "Gateway to India" in 1948, as
the British flag over the Gateway was ceremonially lowered for the last time.
Many Japanese department stores and supermarkets
play the song to let customers know the store will be closing soon.
It has been used in a number of films, with its
first use in the 1942 re-release of the Charlie
Chaplin film The Gold Rush with added sound, the
song is sung at a New Year's Eve party. It is
not certain if the same song was sung when the
original silent film was released in 1925.. The
song has been used in the film Waterloo Bridge -
under the name of The Farewell Waltz - (1940),
starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor. It is
arguably one of the most memorable and
best-loved sequences of the film. It was also
used in the Triad Trilogy Infernal Affairs uses
the tune in the second film when a triad has
finished killing a gang boss. The song is sung
in many of the films produced by Frank Capra,
including It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Deeds Goes
to Town, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The
W.S. Van Dyke film, I Take This Woman (1940),
starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr uses the
song at the film's finale, with the patients and
staff of a clinic singing it a cappella; the
finale of It's a Wonderful Life is a direct echo
of this presentation. In the Samuel Fuller film
The Steel Helmet, the film's main character,
Sgt. Zack, requests that the song be played by
"Fat Paul" on a portable organ. The group of
American soldiers is shocked to find out, after
a South Korean boy who has accompanied them
recognizes and sings Korean lyrics to the tune,
that the melody also serves as the South Korean
national anthem. More recently, towards the end
of Ghostbusters II, the people of New York City
sing "Auld Lang Syne", which weakens the evil
Viggo the Carpathian's power enough to be
defeated. The song was played in When Harry Met
Sally, the New Year's party in which Harry
states he never fully understood what the song
meant and says "I mean, 'Should old acquaintance
be forgot'? Does that mean that we should forget
old acquaintances, or does it mean if we
happened to forget them, we should remember
them, which is not possible because we already
forgot?". Sofie Fatale's cell phone ringtone is
Auld Lang Syne in the film Kill Bill Volume 1.
In the 2008 film Sex and the City, a recording
by Scottish singer Mairi Campbell is used during
a montage depicting the characters actions at
New years. The recording is notable for its use
of the original melody as opposed to the
commonly performed melody sung today. It is also
in contrast to the joyous and jubilant
arrangements commonly heard on celebratory
occasions, as it consists merely of an acoustic
guitar and strings accompanying Campbell's vocals.
It was used in the soap opera Passions when
Timmy' sung it to mourn the erroneous passing of
his friend Tabitha Lenox, but after Josh Ryan
Evans died in 2002, his version was used in the
final episode in memorial of him.
The song was used to signify the event of Hong
Kong's transfer to China in 1997, with the
fictional eradication of many gang bosses. The
American PBS television series Great
Performances'' 2006/7 program titled "Garrison
Keillor?s New Year?s Eve Special" had the
audience sing an adaptation of the lyrics with a
humorous last verse: "I think of all the great,
high hearts I had when I was young / And now who
are these sad old farts I find myself among?"
Covers and renditions
Cliff Richard sang the Lord's Prayer to the
melody of Auld Lang Syne in his Christmas song "The Millennium Prayer".
Dan Fogelberg recorded a hit song called "Same
Old Lang Syne", on his 1981 album The Innocent
Age. The song was about encountering an old
lover not on New Year's Eve, but on Christmas Eve.
Canadian band Barenaked Ladies who performed a
rendition of the song "Auld Lang Syne" on their
2004 CD Barenaked for the Holidays.
Bobby Darin recorded a Christmas version in
1960, titled "Christmas Auld Lang Syne", while
the song You're a Grand Old Flag by George M.
Cohan, the first line "Should auld acquaintance
be forgot" is part of the song's chorus, and is
also cited in the song's instrumental introduction.
Boney M recorded a dance-pop cover in 1986.
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amgsql=10:kcfexq9jld6e
"Dick Clark's New Years Rockin Eve" uses Auld
Lang Syne as its "theme" song. The show has two
versions which are both performed by Kyle
Warren, Jerry Adamowitz, and Mike Weiland on
keyboard, bass, and drums respectively.
"Straight No Chaser" included the Song in their
album "Holiday Spirits (Bonus Track Version)", as a bonus track.
Relient K included the song in their album "Deck
the Halls and Bruise Your Hands."
German punk band Die Toten Hosen sang a
rendition of the song in 1999. While the first
two verses remain the same the rest of the
lyrics are about drinking and having fun.
Melody
The tune to which "Auld Lang Syne" is
universally sung is a pentatonic Scots folk
melody, probably originally a sprightly dance in a much quicker tempo.
English composer William Shield seems to quote
the "Auld Lang Syne" melody briefly at the end
of the overture to his opera Rosina, which may
be its first recorded use. The contention that
Burns borrowed the melody from Shield is for
various reasons highly unlikely, although they
may very well both have taken it from a common
source, possibly a strathspey called The
Miller's Wedding or The Miller's Daughter. The
problem is that tunes based on the same set of
dance steps necessarily have a similar rhythm,
and even a superficial resemblance in melodic
shape may cause a very strong apparent
similarity in the tune as a whole. For instance,
Burns' poem "Coming Through the Rye" is sung to
a tune that might also be based on the Miller's
Wedding. The origin of the tune of God Save the
Queen (q.v.) presents a very similar problem,
and for just the same reason, as it is also
based on a dance measure. (See the note in the
William Shield article on this subject.)
Whatever its source, the "Auld Lang Syne" tune
has been used all over the world in various contexts, for example:
In Denmark, the song was translated in 1927 by
the famous Danish poet Jeppe Aakjær. Much like
Robert Burns' use of dialect, Aakjær translated
the song into the Danish dialect sallingbomål, a
dialect from the northern part of western
Jutland, south of the Limfjord, often hard for
other Danes to understand. The song Skuld gammel
venskab rejn forgo ("Should auld acquantaince be
forgot" mdash; Scots / "Should old acquaintance
be forgotten" mdash; English), is an integral
part of the Danish Højskole tradition, and often
associated with more rural areas and old
traditions. Also, the former Danish rock group
Gasolin modernized the melody in 1974 with their
pop ballad Stakkels Jim ("Poor Jim").
In Pakistan, the tune was played at the formal
resignation of President Pervez Musharraf as the country's Chief of Army Staff.
In the United States, the song is used as a song
of remembrance at memorial events. The
University of Virginia's alma mater ("The Good
Old Song"), the anthem of Alpha Kappa Psi, Beta
Theta Pi's "Parting Song" and Phi Sigma Kappa's
"Initiation Hymn" are all sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne".
In India, the melody was the direct inspiration
for the popular Bengali song "Purano shei diner
kotha" (About the old days) composed by Nobel
laureate Rabindranath Tagore, and forms one of
the more recognizable tunes in Rabindra Sangeet
(Rabindra's Songs), a body of work of 2,230
songs and lyrical poems that form the backbone of Bengali music.
In Japan, the Japanese students' song Hotaru no
hikari ("Glow of a Firefly") uses the "Auld Lang
Syne" tune. The words are a series of images of
hardships that the industrious student endures
in his relentless quest for knowledge, starting
with the firefly?s light, which the student uses
to keep studying when he has no other light
sources. It is used as a graduation song and a
funeral song in Taiwan and Hong Kong,
symbolizing an end or a goodbye. In Japan it is
used in graduation ceremonies, and many stores
and restaurants play it to usher customers out at the end of a business day.
The tune is used for the Dutch football song,
Wij houden van Oranje ("We love Orange").
In France, the melody is used with French words
and the parting song is entitled Ce n?est qu?un
au revoir ("This is only a goodbye", i.e., a
temporary parting, as opposed to a definitive "Farewell").
In Indonesia, the melody is used as a farewell
song that is commonly sung during graduation or farewell parties.
In Malaysia, the melody is sung in English and
Malay language as a farewell song for various occasions.
In South Korea, the melody was used for the
national anthem, Aegukga, until composer Ahn
Eak-tai composed a new melody to the existing
lyrics. Like Japan and Taiwan, it is now used in
South Korea as a graduation song and a farewell song to friends or at funerals.
In Italy, this melody is very well known by
Italian football supporters since the 1970s. It
is often sung in stadiums during the matches,
especially after the kick-off. Many Italian
supporters of different regions and cities
adopted this tune and arranged its lyrics according to their teams.
These are the lyrics sung by A.S. Roma
supporters: La nostra fede mai morrà/canteremo
noì ultrà/e insieme a te saremo allor/forza Roma
vinci ancor ("Our faith will never die/we, the
ultrà, will sing/then we'll be with you/come on Roma, win again").
In Poland and Germany, this tune is used by the
Scouts movement for their farewell song at the
end of summer camps or just to say goodbye after
events. The Polish song with other lyrics is
titled Ogniska ju dogasa blask. The German
version is titled Nehmt Abschied Brüder.
Since 2007, the melody has been used as an
introduction to the mass chorus of America the
Beautiful that is played by the twelve finalist
corps at the Finals Retreat at the Drum Corps
International World Championships.
Coincidentally, "Auld Lang Syne" and "America
the Beautiful" have the same meter, and the lyrics can be sung interchangeably.
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