New Year’s Eve & "Auld Lang Syne"

Tonight is New Year’s Eve, and I’m ringing it in with one of my very first posts that I wrote in January 1, 2017. The title, New Year’s Eve Traditions.

Take a trip down Memory Lane with Guy Lombardo, Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest, and me.

The link: http://www.rindabeach.com/blog/new-years-eve-traditions
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                ​Part 1: The Beginning of “Auld Lang Syne”
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​Those famous words didn’t start as a song title, but as a Scottish phrase. If you check the Oxford English Dictionary, it’s defined as “times long past,” “times long ago,” or “old times.”

​I learned that on Word Smarts.
​Their link: https://wordsmarts.com/auld-lang-syne/?lctg=c4d2fe5b-125d-41db-a63c-ea78909f2d82
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A Long Ago Poem: Meet Sir Robert Ayton. His poem, “Old Long Syne,” but Sir Robert didn’t consider himself a poet. Someone else did, and they published his work in 1711. Almost 73 years after his death.

I was curious about Sir Robert. He was knighted by King James. Sir Robert served as the private secretary to the wives/queens of King James and his son, King Charles I. He was so good at languages that he wrote in Latin, Greek, French, English, and of course Scottish.

                                 My additional source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Ayton
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A New Song : Meet Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland. He was known for writing in Scots and English. Burns never claimed “Auld Lang Syne” as his own creation. He used a fragment he liked, probably from Robert Ayton’s original poem.

Burns wrote his songs using well-known tunes. He kept working on several poems until one finally fit the melody he’d chosen. He collaborated with men like George Thompson who published his work. But he also fought Thomson to preserve their Scottish character.

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The song we know as “Auld Lang Syne” is not the one Burns wrote.
​Someone changed the melody after his death.
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My additional source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Burns\
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                                                                                                            Part 2: The Making of “Auld Lang Syne”                                                                               

The change happened in 1799, three years after the death of Robert Burns. Remember George Thomson? He put in a whole new melody; something Burns would never have approved.

Thomson liked the verses of Scottish poets like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, but he preferred Viennese melodies from Joseph Hadyn and Ludwig van Beethoven.

And for the new tune, Thomson went to Rosina, a comic opera based on the Book of Ruth from the Bible. Mrs. Frances Brooke substituted English characters into the Biblical plot, and William Shield set it to music. The opera premiered in 1782, and Shield’s music was an overnight success. One melody, so memorable that 17 years later Thomson gave it to “Auld Lang Syne.” The rest is history. ​
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                      My additional sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Thomson
                                 - https://notesfromthegarrett.com/opera/shield-william-ope-shi/rosina
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A New Tradition: The illustration below was done in 1841 by John Masey Wright and John Rogers. It shows how the Scotts celebrated Hogmanay 42 years after Thomson published the new version of “Auld Lang Syne.”
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Look closely at the bottom of that illustration. You’ll see 4 lines of verse from the Thomson version. I’m glad Wright and Rogers illustrated how “Auld Lang Syne” became part of Hogmanay, Scotland’s New Year’s Eve.
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The photograph came from Hogmanay 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Can you guess what the people are singing? It’s probably the same New Year’s Eve classic sung in Times Square, USA and around the world.

To see and read more about Hogmanay, click on my additional source. The photos and illustrations are super!  The Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay


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America Embraces the Tradition: Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadian Orchestra made “Auld Lang Syne” part of their annual set list for New Year’s Eve in 1929. They would perform it on American radio for another 30 years.

In 1956 Lombardo moved the show to television, and it became a New Year’s Eve tradition. I grew up watching Guy Lombardo! By the mid-1970s teenagers like me switched to Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, but my parents stayed with Guy Lombardo.

You can still hear his version of “Auld Lang Syne” every New Year’s Eve. It’s played when the ball drops in Times Square, New York.
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                                        My additional source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuyLombardo
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​And the photo in black-and-white, it came from It’s a Wonderful Life, a 1946 movie classic. People still watch it today, 79 years after it debuted in theatres. I never paid attention to the music, but can you name one of the songs? If you guessed “Auld Lang Syne,” you’re right!

If you google, you can find eighteen other movies that feature “Auld Lang Syne.” They include:
                                - When Harry Met Sally (1989)                       - Forrest Gump (1994)
                                - Elf (2003)                                                                   - New Year’s Eve (2011)
                                                                       - The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

                       My additional sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life
                      To find the other thirteen movies, type ‘movies with auld lang syne’ into Google.